Best Booze and Bellies 2008 | Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Booze and Bellies

Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace

Mark Antonation
Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace may have a funny name, but it takes its booze very, very seriously. From day one, the staff has been exhorted to think of the bar as an extension of the kitchen — a place where only the best ingredients and most rigorous prep will be accepted. The results are some seriously powerful and seriously delicious classic cocktails which, once you've knocked back a few, require something equally good and very filling from the kitchen. Which is where the bellies come in — pork bellies, in this case, used to make the incomparable cheesy pork-belly masa cake. On its own, this dish would be reason to drive to Boulder, but it's just one entry on a menu chock-full of the varied flavors of Central and South America.

Best Bourbon List

West End Tavern

Courtesy West End Tavern Facebook
When owner Dave Query set out to remake the West End, a longtime Boulder institution, a few years ago, he made a decision to lay in the area's biggest stock of bourbons. Today, the bar offers everything from the once-bum-juice/now-cool Bulleit Bourbon and old friends like Wild Turkey and George Dickel to Sazerac rye and the $45-a-shot Jim Beam Distiller's Masterpiece. So fans of this classic American should head directly to the West End. With their wallets, because one drink won't be enough.

Best Bread

Bluepoint Bakery

Man could live by bread alone, if it were made at Bluepoint Bakery. This is a huge production bakery with an enormous book for everything from breads to desserts to pastries, but the breads are the real star: at least a dozen kinds of French bread, twice the number of dinner and sandwich rolls, eight pan breads and a half-dozen deli loaves — including the best marbled rye this side of Manhattan's Lower East Side. And while a mere mortal can't just drop by for a nice loaf (unless, of course, said mortal wants to buy a whole lot of loaves), Bluepoint's product isn't hard to find: The bakery supplies breads, pastries and desserts for clients from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, doing the baking grunt work for hotels, coffee shops, airport concessionaires and, most important, owner Mary Clark's new restaurant, Fisher Clark Urban Delicatessen.

Best Breakfast Burrito

Señor Burrito

Señor Burrito has the breakfast-burrito category all wrapped up. For starters, it serves breakfast burritos whenever it's open — a big consideration for those of us who keep strange hours. And no matter what time you get a breakfast burrito here, it's always well-made — big but not too big, with just the right blend of blandness and spice, and filled with cubed potatoes as opposed to sliced, as opposed to all manner of hash browns and home fries. This might seem like a small detail, but it makes a big difference in the texture of the final product. Señor Burrito's breakfast burritos are served either wet or dry; go with wet if you have time to eat at a table and enjoy the atmosphere as well as your breakfast, or dry — with the chile inside — for the ultimate portable meal. Either way, they're the perfect way to start, or end, a day.

Best Breakfast for Hippies

Mercury Cafe

Marilyn Megenity has been working to save the world with food for more than three decades, and at the Mercury Cafe, it looks like she's winning. From wind-driven electrics and a fryer-oil-to-biodiesel recycling plan to a local, sustainable, green but not exclusively vegetarian weekend brunch menu featuring organic egg omelets with quinoa and whole-grain hotcakes, breakfast here is something even the most committed environmentalist can get behind. And true anarchists can enjoy making hard-core sprout enthusiasts squirm by ordering a bloody rare elk steak and eggs, which are also on offer. But the best thing about a meal at the Merc is that while this institution takes its tree-hugging seriously, it approaches cooking with just as much dedication.

Best Breakfast for Hipsters

City, O' City

Hunter Stevens
At City, O' City — the all-things-to-all-people coffeehouse/restaurant/hangout that Dan and Michelle Landes opened in the former home of their original WaterCourse Foods — everything is laptops and nose rings, hummus, leg hair, Lou Reed on the stereo and twig-and-berry ascetics swooning over fig pizzas and falafel. At night, the place draws big crowds. But we like it best in the morning, when the bulk of the square community is at work and the cool kids start coming in to salve their wounds with earth-friendly breakfast burritos and tempeh bacon. At these times, City, O' City is quiet, uncrowded and — provided the kitchen crew hasn't been too damaged by their own night's rigors — the perfect place to cool out and get right with your karma.

Best Breakfast on the Go

Waffle Brothers

When hunger strikes on the 16th Street Mall, the mighty Waffle Brothers, John Power and Rod Dupen, are at your service. Starting with a warm, Liège-style Belgian waffle — caramelized around the edges thanks to the inclusion of imported nib sugar in the batter — as a base, the bros then pile on the toppings you request, everything from the basic cinnamon or powdered sugar and whipped cream to fresh fruit, cranberry compote and creamy marshmallow cream cheese. Don't waffle! It's what to eat when you're on the street.

Best Breakfast Pastries

Les Delices de Paris

The croissant at Les Delices are excellent — buttery, flaky, crisp and puffed just right so they collapse against the teeth almost before you bite into them. The brioche are delicious, the tartellet like tiny fruit jewel boxes. And owners Gerard and Christelle Donat certainly know their way around the big-ticket items — the cakes and display pieces. But for our money, the best way to celebrate the dawning of a new day is with one of the bakery's sugar-glazed, impossibly bittersweet citron tarts and a cream Napoleon, a completely impractical construct of flaky mille-feuille, pastry cream and sugar that's so good you'll be inspired to get up early just so you can get to Les Delices before they're all gone.

Best Brewpub

Bull & Bush

Evan Semón
The Bull & Bush, which is modeled after an old London pub with its low ceilings, dark wood and brass rails, didn't start out as a brewpub. But then, back when the Peterson brothers founded the B&B in 1971, there weren't any brewpubs in Colorado. Instead, it racked up another first when it hooked up to satellite dishes for sports programming, arguably becoming the country's original sports bar. That worked when Glendale was the swinging-singles center of Denver, but as the neighborhood changed, so did the Bull & Bush. The next generation of Petersons put the emphasis back on pub, adding a microbrew operation that turns out a small but impressive lineup of beers. Today the Bull & Bush remains small, friendly and very Cheers-like, a place where everyone may know your name, but they won't spill if you want to keep a low profile. And when the Petersons aren't brewing the stuff, they're likely to be behind the bar, pouring you your next beer.

Best Brewpub

Bull & Bush

Evan Semón
The Bull & Bush, which is modeled after an old London pub with its low ceilings, dark wood and brass rails, didn't start out as a brewpub. But then, back when the Peterson brothers founded the B&B in 1971, there weren't any brewpubs in Colorado. Instead, it racked up another first when it hooked up to satellite dishes for sports programming, arguably becoming the country's original sports bar. That worked when Glendale was the swinging-singles center of Denver, but as the neighborhood changed, so did the Bull & Bush. The next generation of Petersons put the emphasis back on pub, adding a microbrew operation that turns out a small but impressive lineup of beers. Today the Bull & Bush remains small, friendly and very Cheers-like, a place where everyone may know your name, but they won't spill if you want to keep a low profile. And when the Petersons aren't brewing the stuff, they're likely to be behind the bar, pouring you your next beer.

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