A few months back, fresh off my return from Beijing to the States, I explored Denver for Chinese food like that I’d eaten across the Pacific, coming up with a short list of places that offer tastes of iconic dishes. It was mostly limited to Taiwanese and Cantonese food, with…
Westword’s Food & Drink coverage is a finalist in the International Association of Culinary Professionals contest.
Caroline Glover just opened Annette, a snug restaurant in the Stanley Marketplace, where she hopes to give diners a taste of what she likes feeding people in her own home. Annette is a very personal project for Glover, and to pull it off, she’s drawing on lessons learned at New York City’s Spotted Pig, Acorn in Denver, and various American farms. In the run-up to the opening, we caught up with the young chef to talk about the lessons she learned from farming, why opening a marketplace restaurant is like going to group therapy, and why chefs must continue to pursue sustainable sourcing, even if the novelty of phrases like “farm to table” has worn off.
Let’s say you’re a sustainability-minded food consumer, and you vote with your dollar by buying from farmers’ markets and local producers, by purchasing organically grown produce or cage-free eggs. What do you do when you’re eating out and have less direct control of the food on your plate? Especially as…
Casa Bonita is a true Colorado classic, a forty-plus-year-old eatertainment complex that bills itself as “the world’s most exciting restaurant” and has been immortalized on South Park as the “Disneyland of Mexican restaurants.” Despite its international notoriety, though, some Coloradans have never been to the place – a shocking lapse that we were determined to remedy.
No. 22: Empanadas at Lazo Empanadas Lazo Empanadas is the more streamlined offshoot of Boulder’s Rincon Argentino. The bright but bare-bones shop in the Ballpark neighborhood (which was once the cafe side of Buenos Aires Pizzeria) sells nothing but the South American pastries and a few packaged foods, like jars…
Beer is big, and wine is ripe for a turnaround. Chris Fehlinger and Jon Lipshutz, longtime New Yorkers who came to Denver via Los Angeles and Santa Fe, opened Clyde last fall in the former Capitol Hill home of Le Central. They’ve worked hard to make their concept feel fresh, but the glass seems half full.
Visitors to Hillstone (303 Josephine Street) and its sibling, the Cherry Creek Grill (184 Steele Street), over the weekend got a little less than they bargained for — especially on Super Bowl Sunday. The restaurants were open but the booze wasn’t flowing; signs on the doors explained the reason. Turns…
While searching for the cuisine of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen (the seven countries whose citizens were banned from entering the U.S. by Donald’s Trump executive order) in metro Denver, I came across Rice & Kabob Persian Kitchen at 1699 South Colorado Boulevard. I assumed Persian would…
Does the Satire belong on our list of the most iconic bars in Denver? This reader thinks so.
The restaurant market is getting tight in Denver, but plenty of chefs and restaurateurs think there’s room for more. Do you think we’re oversaturated with new bars and eateries, or is there always room for more variety? Either way, these ten breweries and restaurants have announced their intentions to join…
As January transitioned to February and ice coated the city in a slippery layer, this week’s food news included a company called Infinite Harvest that doesn’t worry too much about the weather outside for growing vegetables hydroponically indoors. In fact, the company hopes to some day set up farming operations…
Rolling out of bed on a weekend morning is a little easier when there’s brunch on the horizon. Denver has no shortage of eggy options for everyone’s favorite mid-morning meal, but here are three new options for a change-up from the standard French toast and eggs Benedict. From a fully…
More than twenty restaurants opened this January in metro Denver, which is a big number for a typically slow time of year. But nothing has been typical for the restaurant industry over the past two or three years, so big numbers are hardly even news. What’s notable about this month’s…
If you’re ready for drive-thru barbecue and craft beer, Uturn BBQ is ready for you. The Lafayette smokehouse and brewery opened this week at 599 Crossing Drive (just north of the intersection of Baseline Road and 107th Avenue), serving canned beer in six-packs and smoked pork, beef and chicken. Other…
The Halcyon Hotel at 245 Columbine Street in Cherry Creek is already home to one restaurant, Departure, as well as a members-only bar called Boys & Girls Club in the basement. But later this month, those two will be joined by Quality Italian, a New York City concept headed by…
A new fast-casual restaurant called Broken Rice opens today at 1390 South Colorado Boulevard, offering a variety of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese dishes in an upscale, fast-casual setting. While Broken Rice is run by a California-based company, this is the first Broken Rice in the country. Ric Gordon, President of…
Finding acceptance and successfully integrating are not easy tasks for immigrants to Colorado, who can face ignorance, fear and hostility. But food can be a bridge to understanding and sharing culture, and often leads the way to acceptance of people whose customs are different from those of the majority. Immigrants…
In the ten years since Libby and Brad Birky opened SAME Cafe, the country has gone in and out of a recession, political landscapes have shifted, and issues that weren’t on anyone’s radar — such as no-tipping policies and living wages — have become national flashpoints. The Birkys have changed, too, expanding their operation, adapting to the community’s needs, and posing even bigger questions about what SAME Cafe — short for So All May Eat — can do to support its guests. One thing, however, has never wavered: their commitment to the fight against hunger, and for this, their pay-what-you-can restaurant has become a national model.
When chef Mary Nguyen opened Olive & Finch at 1552 East 17th Avenue in 2013, she never expected it to be anything more than a passion project. “The success of Olive & Finch has been a surprise because I really opened it to meet my own needs,” the chef explains…
No. 23: Sloppy Joe at Thunderbird Imperial Lounge It’s not often that you see an old-school Sloppy Joe coming from a restaurant kitchen, so when the dish popped up on the menu at this new Highland eatery, we had to try it. Good thing too, because consulting chef Goose Sorensen…
Infinite Harvest has great food, no atmosphere. That’s because Tommy Romano, the aerospace engineer who launched the Lakewood complex, isn’t in the business just to provide high-end restaurants with superior microgreens: He believes Infinite Harvest is a gateway to the food of our future — especially if that future carries us far from Earth.
