Best power lunch -- non-power-trip division 2000 | La Fiesta Supper Club | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best power lunch -- non-power-trip division

La Fiesta Supper Club

Those truly in the know realize that there's no supper at La Fiesta. The place is open for weekday lunch only -- but that's okay, because most diners will have made their dime before the close of the business day. For decades, the town's true power brokers -- everyone from lawyers to cops to insurance brokers to journalists -- have flocked to the cavernous confines of La Fiesta, where they dig into baskets of chips accompanied by a sense-singeing salsa, plates covered with crispy chiles rellenos filled with molten cheese, and such daily specials as chile Caribe. The talk is fast, the service faster. Like the green chile, this place is hot.

Best place for a nooner

Sambuca Jazz Café

Dinner at Sambuca Jazz Café is sexy enough, but there's something about the low-lit dining rooms filled with faux-leopard cushions and soft, pillowy ceiling fabrics that makes us want to be here when we shouldn't be -- and with someone we shouldn't be with. Say, at lunch, with the boss's significant other. He or she is bound to appreciate the sensuous zebra pasta pocket filled with creamy lobster; or the carnal steak frit, a hefty grilled hangar steak that comes on a bed of fried potatoes, all drenched in a strong peppercorn sauce. And then there's that thick, whipped-cream-consistency tiramisu to really whip things into a frenzy. Spring for a bottle of Italian sparkling, and put the Palm Pilot on autopilot. The order of the day may be business, but from here on out, it's all monkey business.

Best place for a nooner

Sambuca Jazz Café

Dinner at Sambuca Jazz Café is sexy enough, but there's something about the low-lit dining rooms filled with faux-leopard cushions and soft, pillowy ceiling fabrics that makes us want to be here when we shouldn't be -- and with someone we shouldn't be with. Say, at lunch, with the boss's significant other. He or she is bound to appreciate the sensuous zebra pasta pocket filled with creamy lobster; or the carnal steak frit, a hefty grilled hangar steak that comes on a bed of fried potatoes, all drenched in a strong peppercorn sauce. And then there's that thick, whipped-cream-consistency tiramisu to really whip things into a frenzy. Spring for a bottle of Italian sparkling, and put the Palm Pilot on autopilot. The order of the day may be business, but from here on out, it's all monkey business.

Best restaurant when you're on the doughnut diet

Chuck's Do-Nuts

What goes round comes round. "Quality Donuts Since 1948," the sign promises, and Chuck's Do-Nuts delivers. Each and every day, Chuck's bakers cook up two dozen kinds of doughnuts, and then charismatic owner Dan Imo presides over the day's purchases. He gets a little help from his peanut gallery of regulars who perch at the low counter and drink coffee -- the regular kind, of course, not some newfangled flavored swill. Since the day the storefront opened over fifty years ago, Chuck's most popular doughnut has been the raised glazed, and with good reason: It's raised high and light, with a soft, spongy texture and little pockets of air for fluffiness, and it's glazed with a sugar mixture done right. But that doughnut only scratches the surface of Chuck's delights. The glazed chocolate cake doughnut is like a breakfast brownie; the custard-filled Bismarck tastes like a Boston cream pie; and the chocolate icing on the plain cake is better than some of them fancy French ganaches. Doughnuts may be all the rage these days, but Chuck's proves that with age comes wisdom -- and the best doughnuts in town.

Best restaurant when you're on the doughnut diet

Chuck's Do-Nuts

What goes round comes round. "Quality Donuts Since 1948," the sign promises, and Chuck's Do-Nuts delivers. Each and every day, Chuck's bakers cook up two dozen kinds of doughnuts, and then charismatic owner Dan Imo presides over the day's purchases. He gets a little help from his peanut gallery of regulars who perch at the low counter and drink coffee -- the regular kind, of course, not some newfangled flavored swill. Since the day the storefront opened over fifty years ago, Chuck's most popular doughnut has been the raised glazed, and with good reason: It's raised high and light, with a soft, spongy texture and little pockets of air for fluffiness, and it's glazed with a sugar mixture done right. But that doughnut only scratches the surface of Chuck's delights. The glazed chocolate cake doughnut is like a breakfast brownie; the custard-filled Bismarck tastes like a Boston cream pie; and the chocolate icing on the plain cake is better than some of them fancy French ganaches. Doughnuts may be all the rage these days, but Chuck's proves that with age comes wisdom -- and the best doughnuts in town.

Best lunch wagon

O'Brien's Wings & Things

Lunch doesn't have to be the time to fill your moaning stomach with mediocre, artery-clogging food designed to fortify you for the horrors ahead (or kill you before you return to the boardroom). It can be a time to retreat, to return to simpler times and simpler pleasures. After all, that's what chef Kevin O'Brien did when he closed his restaurant in Heritage Square and turned a wagon-shaped lunch cart dating from the 1930s -- all he and his wife could afford at the time -- into O'Brien's Wings & Things. The Things include such down-home delights as chicken-fried chicken sandwiches, plus hamburgers packaged as singles, doubles or triples and served with white-wine-marinated mushrooms or green olives. But the tasty wings are really the thing here, and O'Brien's homemade dressings and sauces -- everything from ranch to raspberry to sesame -- really make them fly.

Best lunch wagon

O'Brien's Wings & Things

Lunch doesn't have to be the time to fill your moaning stomach with mediocre, artery-clogging food designed to fortify you for the horrors ahead (or kill you before you return to the boardroom). It can be a time to retreat, to return to simpler times and simpler pleasures. After all, that's what chef Kevin O'Brien did when he closed his restaurant in Heritage Square and turned a wagon-shaped lunch cart dating from the 1930s -- all he and his wife could afford at the time -- into O'Brien's Wings & Things. The Things include such down-home delights as chicken-fried chicken sandwiches, plus hamburgers packaged as singles, doubles or triples and served with white-wine-marinated mushrooms or green olives. But the tasty wings are really the thing here, and O'Brien's homemade dressings and sauces -- everything from ranch to raspberry to sesame -- really make them fly.

Best lunch buffet

Santino's

Tired of the typical Asian lunch deal, where a buck a scoop nets you nothing but dried-out rice and sesame chicken that tastes like candy-coated cardboard? Then head over to Santino's, where chef/owner Sonny Rando puts out an Italian spread that gives new meaning to the word abbondanza. For $9.95 a person, diners can tuck into soups, salads, breads, mini calzones, meatballs, pizzas, pepper poppers and mozzarella sticks, along with a choice of five or six entrees each day -- including some of Rando's well-known specialties such as chicken cacciatore and vodka ravioli -- as well as fruit salad and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. Business types will appreciate the quiet repose of the place, sports fans will enjoy their favorites' autographs on the regular menu, and chow hounds will marvel at so much meal for the money.

Best lunch buffet

Santino's

Tired of the typical Asian lunch deal, where a buck a scoop nets you nothing but dried-out rice and sesame chicken that tastes like candy-coated cardboard? Then head over to Santino's, where chef/owner Sonny Rando puts out an Italian spread that gives new meaning to the word abbondanza. For $9.95 a person, diners can tuck into soups, salads, breads, mini calzones, meatballs, pizzas, pepper poppers and mozzarella sticks, along with a choice of five or six entrees each day -- including some of Rando's well-known specialties such as chicken cacciatore and vodka ravioli -- as well as fruit salad and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. Business types will appreciate the quiet repose of the place, sports fans will enjoy their favorites' autographs on the regular menu, and chow hounds will marvel at so much meal for the money.

Best place to hear the Cubs lose

Chicago

Courtesy Chicago Style Beef and Dogs Facebook
Luanne and Joe Margotte, proprietors of the Chicago sandwich shop on West Colfax, are displaced Chicagoans in thought, word and deed. As such, they serve up the authentic comfort food of their hometown --Vienna beef hot dogs piled with yellow mustard, relish, chopped onions, tomatoes, pickles and sport peppers; overstuffed Italian beef and sausage sandwiches dripping with juice; pork chops Maxwell Street-style, topped with brown mustard, grilled onions and more sport peppers; even Salerno butter cookies. They also pipe in WGN radio broadcasts of Cubs and White Sox games via the Internet. The place is like a miniature Second City, right down to a pride of place bordering on comic hostility.

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