A conversation with John Broening, of Duo and Olivea

You're making an omelet. What's in it? I hate omelets.

After-work hangout: Home with my wife and our three dogs. I'm almost 46, and my days of carousing after work are long over.

Location Info

Map

Duo Restaurant

2413 W. 32nd Ave.
Denver, CO 80211

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Northwest Denver

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More About

• John Broening
• Emeril Lagasse
• Top Chef (TV Show)
• Main Dish Recipes
• Italian Food and Cooking

Favorite Denver restaurant other than your own: Z Cuisine. Eating there is like being a guest at a wonderful dinner party.

Favorite celebrity chef: Mario Batali. He cooks like a wizard, he's funny and outrageous, and he has a vision — not just of Italian food, which he's changed more than any other chef in America — but of leadership: He hires strong, talented chefs and makes them partners.

Celebrity chef who should shut up: Tom Colicchio. You can't call yourself Mr. Farm-to-Table once you've made a Diet Coke commercial and shepherded a bunch of cheftestants through a Top Chef challenge using Pringles potato chips.

Hardest lesson you've learned: That in a restaurant, service matters as much as food. Duo is as much of a success because of the warm, competent and unpretentious service as it is for the food. As chefs, we assume that a restaurant begins and ends with the food, but of course that's a long way from the truth.

What's next for you? I'd love to find a publisher for my cookbook.

Every week in Chef and Tell, Lori Midson features a Denver chef. Read the full interview on the Cafe Society blog. Contact her at lori.midson@westword.com.