Subject: Dave Query

• First, Do No Harm

  March 16, 2007

• The Centro of Colorado Cuisine

  August 7, 2007

• The Centro of Colorado Cuisine

  August 7, 2007

• First, Do No Harm

  March 16, 2007

• The A List

  Lola's fans have discovered the joy of Mex.

  March 6, 2003

• Another local on Top Chef: New York

  The premiere episode has run, the first two chefs have been booted, and while I know everyone in town was excited about having two locals in the game (Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef at Jax in Boulder and Melissa Harrison, sous at another Dave Query joint, Centro Latin Kitchen), how ‘bout us having three. I got a call from Troy Guard this morning, hipping me to the fact that Alex Eusebio, currently exec chef at Restaurant 15 in L.A., also had some Colorado time behind him, having stood as exec at

  November 14, 2008

• Good times at Go Fish

      The space is simple, almost iconic Japantown nouvelle, with wood and steel and stone all polished to a high and gleaming gloss, mismatched walls in shades of lime and mustard, one of those trickling fountain things and abstract sculptures of fish on the walls done in shiny, candy-colored laminate and burnished metal. The tables and chairs don't match. The warm sake comes from a machine -- like one of those office water coolers, only instead of dispensing cold H20, it's loaded wi

  December 2, 2008

• Oodles of noodles coming to town

  In Bite Me this week, I talk about a couple of noodle joints coming to town -- Bones and Happy Noodle House -- and a New Yorker piece that helped fuel the fad. But Frank Bonanno and Dave Query aren't the only local restaurant empire-builders getting in on this act. The Jet Entertainment Group also has a noodle bar coming: XO, which has been built onto the back of their Jet Hotel at 1612 Wazee Street. Unlike Bones's wild flights of chef-driven weirdness, XO will specialize in healthy no

  December 4, 2008

• Big Red F re-tools at Zolo

  Word just came down that Dave Query -- right in the middle getting his new noodle house project, Happy Noodle House, up and running in Boulder -- has brought some new blood into the kitchen at Zolo Grill, his least press-pimped address, at 2525 Arapahoe Avenue in The Republic. Actually, I guess that's some new-old blood because his new chef, Brett Smith (on the job now for just a couple weeks and backed up by Erik Rollings, ex of Radda, the Kitchen and Avec in Chicago), is actually a former

  January 29, 2009

• Best Seafood Restaurant

  March 27, 2003

• Best Seafood Cookbook

  March 27, 2003

• Get Happy at Happy Noodle House

  Adding something extra at Happy Noodle House.The noodle bar is big business these days. In Manhattan, David Chang has elevated the simple, neighborhood noodle bar to celebrity status (and turned himself into a minor rock star in the process) with his Momofuku brand. In Denver, we've got one of the originals -- Oshima Ramen, straight outta Japan--and Frank Bonanno's Bones. And in Boulder, there's Dave Query's Happy Noodle House, which is where I began to wonder whether this fad (like California c

  June 2, 2009

• Letters to the Editor

  May 1, 2003

• Big Red F ventures to Asia, by way of Happy Noodle House

  I walked into Happy Noodle House at 835 Walnut Street in Boulder, looking for a little happy-hour joy. And I found it. Another one of Dave Query's Big Red F Restaurant Group places, the noodle house has a clean, modern feel, with communal tables, warm hand towels, trays of condiments and dim lighting. It was pretty empty when I got there (early) and was getting packed by the time I left, even though it had just opened a few days earlier, on February 13,My server, the managers and the bussers wer

  February 19, 2009

• Turn on the TV: Top Chef finale tonight

  Hosea Rosenberg, chef at Jax Fish House in Boulder, has made it to the final round of Bravo's Top Chef; the winner will be revealed tonight on the season finale. Cheer the hometown favorite at West End Tavern, 926 Pearl Street in Boulder, where Rosenberg will be holding court alongside Melissa Harrison, another contestant this year and a sous at Centro -- which, like Jax and West End, is part of Dave Query's Big Red F restaurant group. The party starts at 7 p.m. with a meet-and-greet, drink sp

  February 25, 2009

• Top Chef: Hosea Rosenberg

  Well, at least someone in the restaurant industry has some money now... You've all heard that Colorado's own Hosea Rosenberg (chef at Dave Query's Jax Fish House in Boulder, at least for now...) won this year's Top Chef prize.  He walked away with a slot at this year's Food Wine Festival in Aspen, a fat check for a hundred grand, magical underpants made out of Glad Bags (and other items from the "Glad family of products") and bragging rights forever.  As I said in my preview of the f

  February 26, 2009

• Sweet talk from Keegan Gerhard and other tasty events

  There's quite a smorgasbord of food-related fun tonight. "Taste Test: Random Encounters in the History & Science of Food" returns to the Lab at Belmar, 404 South Upham in Lakewood, at 6 p.m. today, March 12, when the focus will be on...sugar. Keegan Gerhard, pastry chef, Food Network host,owner of D Bar Desserts, at 1475 East 17th Avenue, and Westword cover boy (shown here with wife Lisa Bailey) will do some sweet-talking with Stephen Mihm, professor of history at the University of Georgia. Fo

  March 12, 2009

• Bite Me

  War and Pizza

  August 26, 2004

• Happy Noodle House is trying — sometimes too hard

  June 4, 2009

• More Is Less at Centro Latin Kitchen

  June 4, 2009

• Champagne Dreams

  There’s lots of activity bubbling below the surface.

  October 18, 2007

• The Next Danny Meyer?

  Punch-drunk in love with Dave Query, Oceanaire...and Duy Pham's next venture.

  August 9, 2007

• Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace

  Dave Query is not a hack. In fact, he's a genius — and his latest restaurant proves it.

  August 9, 2007

• Bite Into Boulder

  November 9, 2006

• The Year That Was

  From a goose chase to a great chase, 2006 was one wild ride.

  December 28, 2006

• Lola

  Eat, drink and be merry.

  September 7, 2006

• Mex and Match

  Will the real Lola please stand up?

  November 24, 2005

• Almost Famous

  The man, the legend, the ribs.

  October 6, 2005

• Second Helping

  Jax Fish House

  June 16, 2005

• Bite Me

  Tavern Talk

  June 16, 2005

• Dinner and a Show

  A meal at the West End Tavern is the living end.

  June 16, 2005

• It's a Small World

  Tiny and terrific, Emma's is off to a great start.

  November 16, 2000

• Mouthing Off

  April 29, 1999

• Think Big

  September 3, 1998

• Mouthing Off

  December 4, 1997

• The Gill Next Door

  March 27, 1997

• Mouthing Off

  July 18, 1996

• Off Limits

  July 11, 1996

• FISH OUT OF WATER

  July 12, 1995

• HOW THE SOUTHWEST WAS WON

  August 3, 1994

• The List: Big Operators

  Rough week for Big Red F. I wasn't all tht happy with Happy Noodle House; wasn't cuckoo for the Cocoa Puffs at Centro. But that doesn't mean I don't like some of Dave Query's other restaurants. Matter of fact, he runs two other joints that are among my favorites in the city.Which leads me to this week's List: the best single locations in town run by multi-unit operators. I'm not counting the chains in this list. Or any of the really big restaurant groups (save one, arguably). These are just guys

  June 5, 2009

• Chef and Tell: Jamey Fader of Lola and Big Red F

  Jamey Fader​I've kept company at the bar with Jamey Fader more times than I can count, laughing as he tells me stories about the hippies camped out in their caravans just outside Lola during the DNC, simultaneously shaking and nodding my head while he divulges his latest - and usually crazy - chef shenanigans, listening intently as he explains his stance on celebrity chefs, namely that he couldn't care less. Fader once auditioned for Top Chef, the Bravo TV reality show that produced a Bou

  August 19, 2009

• H-Burger Lounge looks toward an early 2010 debut in the SugarCube Building

  ​Just got word that H-Burger Lounge is planning to open in the SugarCube Building, at 16th and Blake streets, in early 2010. The restaurant, a local concept from Peter Pflum, the former operations manager for Dave Query's Big Red F Restaurant Group and most recently the VP of operations for Quizno's, will occupy a portion of the space that Newport's, Sean Huggard's now dead-in-the-water deal, was originally slated to fill. "We really wanted a local chef and a local concept in that space," says

  August 25, 2009

• Chef and Tell: Tyler Wiard of Elway's

  Lori Midson​"I got my ass kicked, but man, did I learn a lot," recalls Tyler Wiard, talking about the early '90s and his days as a line cook for Dave Query and John Platt at Q's Restaurant in the Hotel Boulderado. He must have been up to the task, because Query pulled him off that line and into the fray of Jax Fish House in Boulder before Wiard was eventually lured to Denver by Cliff Young, a former Mile High City restaurateur who opened Napa Cafe and stationed Wiard at the helm. But whi

  September 2, 2009

• H Burger has a date with the city

  ​ There's a promising sign posted at 1555 Blake Street, the future home of H Burger Lounge. Peter Pflum, the restaurateur (he's the former operations manager for Dave Query's Big Red F Restaurant Group and most recently the VP of operations for Quizno's) who came up with the idea of putting a burger joint in the SugarCube building, has a liquor-license hearing with the city set for September 23. But Pflum isn't working alone: According to the sign, his partners include Jet Entertainment G

  September 10, 2009

• Whiskey, it's what's for breakfast at West End Tavern

  Yeah, that's it... Right there at the bottom​ I love breakfast. It is, indisputably, one of my six favorite meals of the day. But I've always had a problem with breakfast, too: It generally doesn't come with enough alcohol. Oh, sure. There are bloody Marys. The beautiful people have their mimosas and their straight champagne. And Irish coffee is always a possibility -- provided you can stomach Bailey's and whipped cream and sprinkles and want a breakfast beverage that tastes like a mout

  October 12, 2009

• Don't worry. Be Happy

  ​ What's in a name? Apparently, not that much. Because while Big Red F honcho Dave Query has dropped the "Noodle House" portion of his Happy Noodle House restaurant's name, the menu hasn't changed a bit. Okay, maybe it's changed a bit since I was there last. But then, it'd already changed a bit before I ever got there, and it seems to change a bit more with every passing month. Point is, though, Happy Noodle House still serves an awful lot of noodles. There's pork ramen and beef udon,

  October 16, 2009

• It gets worse: A week in Italian food

  Mark MangerThe patio at Mark & Isabella is empty for a reason -- and it's not the cold.​ Of all the entrees, only one was even vaguely edible: a piece of swordfish, nicely cooked, napped with a chive crème fraiche - and mounted on a ratatouille that was like mush and bled oil like it'd been knifed on its way out of the kitchen. But still, somewhere in the back of the house at Mark & Isabella, there was a poisonarde who did right by this fish. Who could hold his head high. The rest of Tarb

  October 20, 2009

• West End Tavern delivers from any direction

  October 22, 2009

• Staffing Up: More ideas for Mojitos

  ​ Both readers and restaurateurs had a lot of suggestions for what to do with the former home of Mojitos -- which isn't surprising, considering that this spot at 1120 East Sixth Avenue is a good location just begging for a good operator to go into it. And while I've already reported the news that Alex Gurevich from Limon and Bisque is taking over the space, and will be putting on the big white had to make pizzas and salumi for the neighbors, that didn't stop the guys from Dave Query's B

  November 12, 2009