Best Seafood Restaurant

Sometimes simple is best. Sometimes getting right to the point is better than a whole lot of fancy-pants messing around. And when you're talking about seafood, this is almost always the case. At Lola, Dave Query and Jamey Fader (both also associated with Jax, a longtime Best of Denver fave) have taken this wisdom to heart and come up with a coastal Mexico-themed restaurant where sea critters are the stars. Tender salmon mopped with a barbecue sauce that enhances but never overpowers the fresh, delicate flavor of the fish; rock shrimp ceviche kicked up with candy-sweet mango; a rustic Spanish estofada, a deeply but gently seasoned stew in which the huge shrimp and a half-lobster split like a biology illustration take center stage -- these are just a few of the straightforward and rough-edged dishes that draw huge crowds to Lola. It's nothing fancy -- not artsy or overly gussied up, just good food that speaks for itself.