Best Corned Beef Hash 2011 | Syrup | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Corned Beef Hash

Syrup

Mark Manger

Syrup's got plenty of sweet offerings on the menu, but the star of the list is savory: Chef Tom Willis makes his own corned beef hash, mixing succulent chunks of salty meat with sweet onions, cooked until soft and translucent, and crispy bits of golden-brown potato. The hearty blend is satisfying on its own, served with crisped hash browns and a side of toast. But it's even better as the base of the Cherry Creeker, a variation on eggs Benedict. Two toasted halves of an English muffin are heaped with piles of the meat and potatoes, then topped with two poached eggs and smothered with creamy, tart hollandaise. It's quite the way to start your day.

Best Croissant

The Kitchen

Courtesy the Kitchen

No other kitchen in the area makes makes croissants like those at the Kitchen, which has perfected the luxurious treats that pair so well with strong black coffee. Rich but feather-light, and so flaky that crumbs blow across the table at the lightest touch, these croissants are especially spectacular because they're buttery, not butter-flavored. And while the plain croissants are stunning on their own, the version stuffed with a thick layer of dark chocolate is basically happiness incarnate. The only problem? The Kitchen only bakes croissants for weekend brunch. Which, of course, is why the restaurant almost always sells out of the pastries long before it stops serving that lazy, mid-morning meal.

Best Cuban Sandwich

Buenos Aires Pizzeria

While Buenos Aires Pizzeria is an Argentine restaurant, members of the family that owns it are from Cuba, and they recognize that the key to a really good Cuban sandwich is the bread. Cuban bread: a long baguette of white bread that's similar to French bread, but richer, denser and chewier, thanks to the lard that goes into the dough. For its Cuban sandwich, Buenos Aires Pizzeria slices real Cuban bread, then stacks it with ham, fat-laced roasted pork and Swiss cheese, and presses it flat to the griddle. Once the cheese is melted, tangy flat slices of pickle and plenty of mustard provide the finishing touches.

Best Cupcake

Kim & Jake's Cakes

Jake Rosenbarger has been meditating on cake since he was a kid, baking the stuff in secret in a health-conscious household and stashing it in his room. As a result, he formed a philosophy that cake should be more than a hunk of sugary substance that ends the meal — rather, the pastry should be a balance of unique flavors, just like any savory course. That's the theory that he and his wife, Kim, apply to every cupcake they come up with in their Boulder shop, Kim & Jake's Cakes. The Rosenbargers have dreamt up some interesting ones, too, combining cilantro and lime and topping it with an avocado frosting, or pouring red wine into the batter and then icing the cake with ubriaco del piave cheese. In fact, a hefty portion of their list is inspired by alcohol: stout cupcakes made with local brews, a full line of cocktail-copying treats. But even the classics, such as vanilla and red velvet, are made with a rare eye for balance, and they're fluffy and light enough that you could eat one — or more — every single day.

Best Deconstructed Banh Mi

ChoLon Bistro

Chef Lon Symensma may tout it as a charcuterie board on ChoLon Modern Asian Bistro's menu, but this platter of meat and bread is really an ingeniously deconstructed banh mi, an artfully arranged spread of the traditional elements of the Vietnamese street-food sandwich — bread, pâté, shaved meat, mayonnaise, pickles and microgreens — that very much belongs on a special-occasion table. The crisp, delicate toast points, peppery, bacon-wrapped duck terrine and whipped, decadently creamy foie gras and chicken-liver pâté, all sprinkled with salt, are balanced by the crunch of lightly pickled carrots and daikon radishes, as well as the sharp nip of a Chinese mustard-mayonnaise specked with micro cilantro. ChoLon opened in LoDo last fall, and it's a welcome addition not just to the neighborhood, but to the entire Denver dining scene.

Best Dessert That's Not Chocolate

Spuntino

Spuntino

We're hot, like California boys on California "Gurls," for popsicles. But not — definitely not — the shirt-staining, artificially flavored ice pops in supermarket freezers: Those suck. So do the ice crystals that pass for popsicles handed out by your creepy neighborhood ice-cream truck driver, all in an effort to force kids to spend their entire allowance just to be able to yell "Bomb Pop" without getting sent to juvie. No, for popsicles that really make your tongue go wild, you've got to head to Spuntino. The popsicles here are made in-house, from natural juices and fruits (and sometimes spices), in some sort of awesome contraption that swirls and whirls and freezes. The flavors change on a whim, but if the incredible celery and lime ice pop is available, buy a case and hoard it like gold. The juice, combined with the intense citrus of the lime, is an unlikely combination that's about as much fun as you can have sucking a stick.

Best Desserts

Olivéa

Cassandra Kotnik

Sugar sultana Yasmin Lozada-Hissom is arguably Denver's top pastry chef, and her deeply delicious desserts, created in the kitchen of Olivéa, where she shares space with husband and executive chef John Broening, make our veins rupture in rapture. Indulgent, innovative and wholly gratifying, they're culinary masterpieces of art that have been recognized — and heralded — by the James Beard Foundation. Her desserts aren't child's play; rather, they're impassioned, unrepentant creations that make us happy to be grownups — even if they do speak to our childhood fantasies. Her sweets change with the seasons, as does the rest of the menu, but no matter what's up her sleeve — a chocolate and fleur de sel caramel tart, sugar-powdered Italian doughnuts with ricotta and lemon or the honey-almond semifreddo — it'll take you on a sugar-fueled carpet ride that never stops.

Best Dim Sum

Star Kitchen

Molly Martin

It's high noon on a Saturday and, predictably, there's a crowd of hungry people pushing through the door, speaking in English and foreign tongues, wondering how long the wait might be for a table. It's just another dim sum day at Star Kitchen, a brightly lit utopia of imaginatively prepared, vibrant dumplings and steamed barbecue buns, floppy shrimp rice-noodle rolls and fried sesame balls. The servers wheel shimmering silver carts through the dining room, offering anything — and everything — you could possibly want from a dim sum (and then some) experience. Bonus: There's beer!

Best Dinner on a Monday Night

Vesta Dipping Grill

The Denver Restaurant Week deal lives on at Vesta Dipping Grill, one of the sexiest, best-dressed feedlots in the city. While many restaurants shutter on Mondays, Vesta, the Goddess of the Hearth, flaunts her prowess by offering a three-course meal — which changes every month, and often features past Vesta favorites — at the DRW price of $52.80 for two. And Vesta isn't serving any rubber chickens: A recent Monday menu featured duck leg confit with tomato jam; skewered scallops with fingerling potatoes, fennel and bacon aioli; and a Riesling-poached pear dolled up with caramel and cinnamon ice cream. That's a cheap date that delivers.

Best Dinner Under $10

Pho Duy

Mark Antonation

Tucked into a dilapidated shopping area on Federal and flanked by an impossible-to-maneuver parking lot, Pho Duy has somehow managed to keep slinging pho for nearly two decades. Every seat in the sparse dining room is almost always filled, as staffers scurry through the crowd to take orders, unceremoniously deliver dishes and then clear away the remnants just in time to seat the next group of diners coming in. Save for a few appetizers and specials, this shop simply hawks pho, which starts with dark and pungent beef broth, with depth added by slices of onions cooked soft, their flavor infused into the liquid. The boiling broth is poured over a nest of rice noodles and your choice of peppery, tender flank steak, chewy chunks of tendon, textured strips of tripe and other meaty combinations; the diner tosses in fresh basil, bean sprouts, lime and spicy sriracha to taste. So pho, so good.

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