Serving dinner for one is as important as doing the same for a multitude. Absent all considerations of circumstance, every single diner deserves the absolute best from everyone involved: This is the essence of professional service, of French service in particular, the core truth that makes being a servant a noble calling. “Servant” is a dirty word in this country. In this dining room, though, it is not.
This dining room? It is the small, dim and lovingly serviced one at Indulge, where I spent a few fine hours dining mostly alone, in a room gutted of customers by the DNC and all its attendant hassles. But even though I was one of only a very few who made it up into the neighborhood during what I was told was an exceptionally slow week for owners Stephanie and William Wahl, I was treated so kindly and fed so well that I couldn’t help but fall in love a little with their restaurant. So that’s what this week’s review of Indulge is: a love letter to a quiet dining room, dim lights, excellent wine and a plate of duck in mustard sauce that you’ve got to taste to believe.
Since Indulge was so desolate during the DNC, I also decided to burn a few column inches in Bite Me by seeing how well or poorly some of Denver’s other signature addresses did while the party was in town. The conclusion? Unless you were Jesse Morreale or happened to own a restaurant right smack in the middle of the action, you probably had a pretty dead week. And that’s a shame.
Finally, some news that has nothing whatsoever to do with the DNC—word from Arvada and the new restaurant that used to be Mikey’s Italian Bistro and some big promises from the guys behind Lala’s, open right this minute in the old Sparrow space.
Here’s hoping they fare better than Sparrow did. That space (which has been more restaurants already than I care to count) is starting to get a bit of a curse on it, so I’ve certainly got my fingers crossed. -- Jason Sheehan
