Best Fried Chicken 2011 | The Pinyon | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Fried Chicken

The Pinyon

From the moment the doors flew open at the Pinyon, there was an audible cluck about a bird that flies right. Executive chef/owner Theo Adley, who commands an exhibition kitchen surrounded by voyeurs, many of them local chefs, rubs his chickens with a housemade chile-and-garlic paste sweetened with sugar and tarted up with vinegar. He then floods the fowl in buttermilk for 24 hours and dredges it in potato flour before it hits the sizzle of the frying pan. It's finished in the oven, emerging with a vividly golden crust that adheres to the flesh, so juicy it slobbers. This is the kind of fried chicken that should be boxed and sold on the black market, right alongside the griddled cakes studded with corn and Adley's breakfast syrup, colored ebony with maple and molasses.

Best Fried Food

Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria

Molly Martin

Not content with his command over Neapolitan-style pizza, Mark Dym, the piehole behind Marco's Coal-Fired Pizzeria, has expanded his repertoire to include deep-fried pizza, filling a deep-fried niche that's been previously saturated with Twinkies, pickles and pig ears. The stretchy doughs, submerged in palm oil for less than thirty seconds, are then surfaced with a sauce made of San Marzano tomatoes smooched with garlic and extra-virgin olive oil and topped with nubs of provola (smoked bufala mozzarella) and blots of fresh mozzarella before they're nudged into the wood-fired oven, from which they emerge puffed, charred and greaseless. The deep-fried pizzas are incredibly light, slightly chewy and crispy, and intensely gratifying. That's the upside. The downside? They're only available at the new Marco's at the Vallagio, since Dym's original, downtown location doesn't have a fryer.

Best Front of the House

Frasca Food and Wine

Julia Vandenoever

The front of the house at Frasca is like a ballet: a graceful collection of choreographed movements conceived of and directed by co-owner Bobby Stuckey so that every need of every guest is always met. Each employee, from the expediter to the wine director, carries an immense amount of knowledge about the Friulian eatery, articulating answers to questions with authority. And each person knows his or her role, arriving at the exact moment he or she is needed to clear a plate, fill a bread plate or drop off a check — without intruding on a special evening or interrupting the flow of the show. That delicate dance does more than imbue an evening with an air of luxury; it also makes the food taste better.

Best Girls' Night Out

A Côté Bar à Absinthe

The sliver of a spot that holds Z Cuisine's A Côté Bar à Absinthe is filled with lovely things: French art, a handmade chandelier, wooden tables topped with candles, and old French movies projected on one wall. The place is intimate without the blatant romantic air (or pricing) of its sibling next door, making it an ideal spot for a girls' night out. Though absinthe is the noted spirit, the wine also pours freely, supplementing a board of bistro food — cheese, foie gras and crepes — that's perfect for sharing between a group of girlfriends, gathered in good light to gossip without the distraction of bar TVs, a rowdy crowd or, worst of all, ogling men.

Best Gravy Fries

Steuben's

Cassandra Kotnik

The beauty of Steuben's lies in its steadfast refusal to bow to those whose lives are dictated by calorie counters, hour-long infomercials pimping the latest and greatest way to turn no abs into abs of steel, and self-medicating cookbooks penned by the latest diet guru. Those people, sadly, will never experience the exhilaration of inhaling the gravy fries at Steuben's. The retro diner already hustles some of the best hand-cut shoestring fries on the planet, but when they're blanketed with cheese and smothered with a husky, pepper-specked gravy, it's a quick trip to heaven punctuated by exclamation points. The plate is hilariously large, which means you'll have late-night leftovers — and a car that smells like Main Street Americana.

Best Green Chile

Los Farolitos

This is a city that loves its green chile in all forms, but the verde at Los Farolitos, a sincere Mexican joint shoehorned into a featureless Aurora mini-mall, is the most lovable of all. Tart with tomatillos, specked with oregano and unleashing an unrepentant hot flash of blistering heat, it's the perfect cloak for everything it drapes, including the equally unassailable barbacoa burrito, filled with robust, long-stewed lamb. Everything here, including the Mexican buffet, is worthy of praise, but the green chile consistently delivers. The only bummer is the absence of alcohol to subdue the five-alarm fire, but you can waste away in Margaritaville elsewhere.

Best Happy Hour

Root Down

Root Down Instagram

The happy-hour menu may not be as cheap as at other spots, but at Root Down, you get what you pay for — and much, much more. This eccentric spot has a wonderful vintage-kitsch-meets-modern-funk vibe and a bar that's always buzzing with good cheer — and booze, poured by talented bartenders who know just when we need another round. The happy-hour cocktails include spirited creations like the rosemary-lavender vodka lemonade poured with a heavy hand and a whole lotta love, and the list of happy-hour munchables has something that appeals to everyone's palate. We're partial to the sweet-potato falafel and duck confit sliders, which beat the hell out of mozzarella sticks and nachos any day.

Best Happy-Hour Deal

Interstate Kitchen & Bar

Mark Manger

Interstate has the best happy-hour deal in Denver — and not just because it offers the deal twice a day. And not just because the lineup includes a variety of delicious snacks, all of them a bargain. We'd brake at Interstate for the stovetop popcorn alone. Not only is the corn popped in wickedly rich bacon fat, but exec chef Andre Lobato then crowns a generous mound with crumbles of bacon and spice-dusted peanuts. At happy hour, is there anything better than peanuts, popcorn and bacon — especially when you get all three for just three bucks? "Ever since free bar food went the way of the dodo bird — about the same time that people forgot that a martini was a gin drink — we felt we had to do more than just offer straight popcorn if we were gonna charge any amount of money for it," says Lobato. We'd happily pay double.

Best Homegrown Burrito Chain

Chipotle

Denver's been in love with Chipotle ever since Steve Ells opened his first store on East Evans Avenue back in 1993. And with each passing year, Chipotle gives us more to love. Even as the homegrown chain opens more and more restaurants, it keeps working to improve its gourmet Mexican food, strengthening its commitment to sustainably raised meats and sourcing local produce, using its reputation to change the way people think about and eat fast food. Even if it does still come wrapped up in foil. Over the past year, Chipotle opened its 1,000th restaurant, expanded into London, teamed up with food crusader Jamie Oliver to promote the importance of real food — and got Ells face time as a judge on the Next Great Restaurant. Almost two decades in, life is still burrito-ful.

Best Hot Dog

Mile High Vienna Stand

Cubs ticket stubs, Harry Caray photos and other Chicago sports paraphernalia line the walls of Mile High Vienna Stand, channeling the city that's famous for a favorite sports snack: the Chicago dog. Naturally, that's what Mile High Vienna serves. The bona fide Chicago dog starts with a pungent Vienna beef dog, then adds chopped white onions, pickled sport peppers squirting seeds and juice, nuclear-green sweet relish, a dill pickle spear, thin slices of translucent tomato, a ribbon of mustard and a healthy dusting of celery salt, all piled on a perfectly steamed poppyseed bun. Served with a clip of fries, it's as close as you'll get to the Windy City without leaving the Mile High.

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