Best Martini 2009 | Avenue Grill | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Martini

Avenue Grill

The photos on the wall of the Avenue Grill date back to the '80s, but the feel of this bar dates back much further, to those classic cocktail lounges of the '30s and '40s. And you can taste that golden era in the martinis, which the amiable bartenders mix up big, bold and icy-cold. The martinis here are such a hit that the Avenue Grill even has a martini club, but you don't need to join in order to feel welcome at this bar. Although $5 martinis are a specialty during happy hour, which runs from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. weekdays, the bartenders keep mixing them all night. An evening at the Avenue will leave you shaken, if not stirred.

Best Meat Market

Marczyk Fine Foods

Courtesy Marczyk Fine Foods
Yes, you're probably going to pay top dollar for your meat at Marczyk Fine Foods. But trust us, it's worth it. If you really care about the quality of your food, you should shop at a place where owner Pete Marczyk and his staff take pride in offering nothing but the best of the best. Just peeking through the glass at the cuts of meat displayed by the butchers is addicting — better than leafing through any high-gloss food mag out there. Marczyk's stocks free-range chickens, makes its own sausage, and even puts some of that meat into sandwiches that you can grab for lunch.

Best Meet Market — Aged

Elway's

On Wednesdays all through the summer, the scene at Elway's is hot! Aged, but hot. While bands play in the courtyard, cougars prowl through the bar and the patio, looking for fresh prey. And sugar daddies are doing the same, looking for the next sweet young thing. Should they strike out, there's always a consolation prize: real red meat in the dining room.

Best Meet Market — Raw

The Park Tavern

Face it, fellas: The Yetis you're meeting on that snatch.com Internet dating site just aren't panning out. And ladies? You want it, but you don't want to give it up to a Neanderthal or have to wear a penicillin wetsuit just to get shagged. It's okay to be horny like rockets. And when you need some booty but have no one to call, there's only one place to prowl: the Park Tavern. There's no surer spot for men or women to score a romper-room buddy. The lays are as cheap and easy as the beer. And should you actually just want some platonic company, the Park has both quality drinks and drunks.

Best Mexican Happy Hour

La Fiesta

Mark Antonation
La Fiesta has won many Best of Denver awards, and it's eligible for so many more. Best Mexican Restaurant in a Former Grocery Store. Best Strictly Colorado-Style Mexican Restaurant. Best Wednesday Special (chile caribe). Best Weekday Lunch-Only Mexican Restaurant. Oops, that no longer applies. Because La Fiesta has now extended its hours on Friday, and Friday only, to 9 p.m., and added special happy-hour deals on both food and drink starting at 3 p.m. On sunny days, the outdoor patio is the perfect spot to watch conscientious business types racing home to pay the babysitter; the capacious dining room is conducive to throwing all manner of impromptu parties.

Best Mexican in a Former Chinese Restaurant

El Viva Villa

The first time we ate at El Viva Villa, we immediately wanted to eat here again. The second time we ate here (roughly six hours after the first time), we knew that it was going to go into heavy rotation on our dining schedule. While there's nothing unique about the space (other than the fact that it used to be a good dim sum restaurant), El Viva Villa serves a spread of amazing Mexican food from early in the morning until late in the evening. Our favorite is the burritos — all deeply flavorful (the al pastor in particular), charry-sweet, just the right size and significantly cheaper than a burrito at the Chipotle across the street.

Best Middle Eastern Restaurant

Ya Hala Grill

First things first: The service at Ya Hala Grill is terrible — sometimes laughably so, sometimes maddeningly so. The building itself is little more than a cement bunker on Colorado Boulevard with half a bakery in front and a few tables in back, and the kitchen often seems to be working in its own little world, releasing your dinner in dribs and drabs and often completely out of order. But you've just got to get past all that, because the food at Ya Hala is so good. It's Syrian food, done traditionally and exceptionally well. Gyros for lunch, ballila and fouel and roasted chicken for dinner, the greatest baklava we've ever had for dessert. It's worth putting up with any indignity to get your hands on a plate of that baklava. When a restaurant serves the best Middle Eastern food in the city, you just have to be ready to suck it up — and then eat it up.

Best Modern Vietnamese Restaurant

Parallel Seventeen

On the one hand, Parallel Seventeen is like a Vietnamese tapas restaurant — the style having been co-opted by owner Mary Nguyen from the banquets once held by the Vietnamese royal family. On the other, it's a proper sit-down restaurant that is almost fusion-y in its modern reinterpretation of the traditional French-Asian cuisine of Vietnam. Put those two competing influences together and you get a completely original, delicious concept. From the Maine lobster dumplings with kaffir lime beurre blanc to the steak frites and Hanoi curry, Parallel Seventeen slips effortlessly between culinary traditions and time periods, offering Denver diners the best of all possible worlds.

Best Mostly Mexican Brunch

Lola

This isn't your typical huevos breakfast place. Lola's creative weekend brunch menu — right now, at least — includes crawfish and grits, catfish, chicken-fried pork, even a breakfast torta with smoked shrimp, Serrano ham and tomato-jalapeño jelly. And then there are the weekly specials, each one more inventive than the previous week's. The flavor is distinctly Mexican, with an emphasis on coastal cuisine — and on a sunny day, there's no better beach than Lola's outdoor deck, particularly when you're enjoying it with a margarita in hand.

Best Nachos

Racines and Dixons

Sibling restaurants Racines and Dixons are great places for casual breakfasts, power breakfasts, late-night snacks and the last drink of the night. But we're particularly partial to their nachos — the biggest, boldest plate of nachos in town, a piping-hot heap of food for under ten bucks. You can customize them with black or refried beans, subtract the sour cream or guac, throw on more jalapeños, add meat (flavorful steak or tender chicken), or douse them with the house salsa or your choice of hot sauces. They're carefully constructed so that the gooey nacho goodness goes all the way to the bottom of the platter, and the ratio of toppings to chips ensures that the last bite will be as good as the first.

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