Gumshoe

While I knew from the start that something about this "restaurant" was squirrelly, it wasn't until later that I figured out for sure how things were being done. While there, I'd seen the cooks working with no ventilation inside the center bar and knew from my understanding of building and health codes that there was no way they could actually be cooking anything without hoods and screens and grease traps. So finally, I decided to watch Aqua stock up for the night — hence my idea for a stakeout. I knew (or at least assumed — correctly, as it turned out) that all the deep prep and, in many cases, production work was being done at Chadrom's other restaurant, Opal, across the street. Therefore, all I needed to do was find a place where I could sit, wait and watch to see exactly how much of the actual cooking was being done off-site.

I know now that the smart move would have been to simply go to Opal, take a seat on the patio and have a few cold drinks while I waited, like a civilized human being. Too bad I didn't think of that until much later. Instead, I decided to hang out in the dust along the side of a building on Ninth Avenue, just down the hill, where I would have a good view of both Opal and Aqua without, you know, looking like I was trying to have a good view. Instead, I looked like a particularly bold daytime gigolo when I got there about 2 p.m. Two hours later, I finally saw what I was waiting for. By that point, I'd been hit up for change three times, smoked half a pack of cigarettes, gotten a wicked sunburn on the back of my neck and decided that even if Bogart himself came back from the dead, asked me to partner up with him working a dirty divorce case in 1940s Los Angeles and let me have all the best one-liners, there was no way in hell I was ever going to become a P.I.

But I did get to see the train of white jackets and busboys dodging traffic on Lincoln as they carried laden trays from the actual kitchen at Opal to the bar full of Easy-Bake Ovens at Aqua. I got to see the hotel pans full of cooked-off shrimp, the cut and slow-cooked ribs just waiting to be rewarmed for service, the pots of God-knows-what and trays of pastry-wrapped salmon sweating under the veil of plastic wrap — ruined long before they even saw the inside of the restaurant that was going to be serving them.

And while an argument could be made that what Aqua and Opal are doing isn't all that different from what any normal kitchen does — par-cooking entrees and prepping apps so that everything is ready to fly the minute an order comes in, dissimilar only in the distance between prep kitchen and line — there's definitely a difference in the final product. No matter what harebrained scheme an owner or chef comes up with for the prep and presentation of his menu (and trust me, Aqua's isn't even close to the strangest I've heard of), dinner should never taste anything but the best and freshest it can. I don't want to pay good money for reheated cuisine, for some other kitchen's leftovers. And neither should anyone else.

Leftovers: I got word last week that the new Ritz-Carlton Denver, at 1881 Curtis Street, has named a chef. Andres Jimenez is coming from a Ritz-Carlton property in Las Vegas, where he stood post as executive sous, and bringing some serious credentials with. Prior to his turn in Sin City, he was in the kitchen at Aria in the Key Biscayne Ritz (which Food & Wine named one of the fifty best hotel restaurants in America); he trained at the Ecole de Cuisine et Patisserie du Cordon Bleu in Paris and did apprenticeships with Georges Blanc and Roland Pierroz in Switzerland.

None of which answers the most serious question: Can the man cook a steak? We'll find out this fall, when the Ritz-Carlton and its signature Elway's restaurant open to the public.

Meanwhile, just a few blocks from the future Ritz, Francis Carrera has hired his own muscle to walk the streets in front of the Buenos Aires Grill, at 2191 Arapahoe Street (his Buenos Aires Pizzera is close by, at 1307 22nd Street), to keep less-appealing night creatures away from his patrons as they head to and from their cars.

Finally, on July 3, Kevin Taylor will reopen Rouge at the Teller House just in time for the new Central City Opera season. By the way, there's no connection between this place and Le Rouge, which opened March 1 at 1448 Market Street and is now offering a complimentary buffet from 5 to 7 p.m. every Friday through the summer. Since Eric Roeder (ex of Bistro VendÔme) is the consulting chef, you don't need a private eye to figure out that could be a real steal.