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Something's Fishy

Junz has a few beautiful moments -- but they don't add up to much.

A A A Comments By Jason Sheehan Thursday, Apr 15 2004

...continued from page 2

Sean O'Keefe

Raw ambition: Junz's chef has an impressive resumé, but his restaurant doesn't reflect it.

Location Info

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Junz

11211 S. Dransfeldt Road
Parker, CO 80134

Category: Restaurant > French

Region: Southeast Denver Suburbs

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Details

11211 South Dransfeldt Road, Parker, 720-851-1005. Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9:30 p.m. daily

Lobster salad: $6.95
Tuna tartare: $6.95
Beef tataki: $8.95
Foie gras: $13.50
Chilean sea bass: $23.50
Niku maki: $16.95
Tonkatsu: $13.95
Lamb chops: $21.95

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Maybe I was missing something. Maybe there was a theme I hadn't noticed, some knot that tied everything together, some combination of dishes that would have made Junz make sense. But if there was, I didn't find it. While my Palladin-centric expectations were high, it was also clear that Makino -- while obviously a great cook -- hasn't yet settled into being a great chef, which is a very different thing. Chefs need to be capable of driving a restaurant's concept and menu, of translating -- through the medium of sauté pan and top broiler -- everything they have to say about food through ten or twelve or twenty dishes. And Makino isn't doing that. Yet. Right now, Junz has too many voices talking about too many things all at once.

While this may improve with time, as I sat there poking disappointedly at the last few bites of my tonkatsu -- considering whether to have the crème brûlée or the lychee sorbet or just the check for dessert -- all I knew for sure was that I was going to give Junz plenty of time to figure out what it wanted to say before I came back.

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