Top Chef (TV Show)

Elway's Tyler Wiard gets booted from Top Chef Seattle...or does he?

On last night's season five episode of Top Chef Seattle, Tyler Wiard (nickname T-bone), the culinary director of Elway's -- and the exec chef of Elway's Cherry Creek -- is sent packing, along with fellow chef Chris "CJ" Jacobsen, the two of whom were bludgeoned by judges Gail Simmons, Padma Lakshmi, ... More >>

Jax Fish House named one of the best seafood restaurants in the country

Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar doesn't need to fish for compliments -- the Denver location just keeps reeling them in. This second of the Jax restaurants (the original is in Boulder, and a third opened in Fort Collins two years ago) was named Best Seafood Restaurant in our Best of Denver 2012, and als ... More >>

Reader: Will John Elway make an appearance on Top Chef?

Denver has not one, but two contestants on Bravo's tenth season of Top Chef, which was filmed in Seattle and will start airing in November. The lineupincludes Jorel Pierce, the exec chef of Euclid Hall, and Tyler Wiard of Elway's. And yes, there's a third Colorado chef, Eliza Gavin of 221 South Oak ... More >>

Denver Burger Battle heats up Sports Authority Field tonight

The third annual Denver Burger Battle goes down at Sports Authority Field at Mile High this evening. The popular event is nearly sold out, but there are still some general admission tickets available.

Empty your wallets! Tickets to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen are now on sale

I'll never forget the first time I attended the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. It was the final year that Julia Child, the late, great American chef who demystified French cuisine -- and passed away in 2004 -- made an appearance at the annual Aspen culinary orgy, back when there was no Food Network, ... More >>

Reader: Michelle Obama should stay the hell out of my Happy Meal!

​ Michelle Obama's ski trip to Aspen over Presidents Day weekend created a flurry of interest in our post from this time last year, when she and the First Daughters skied in Vail and ate at Restaurant Kelly Liken. Who knew that Rush Limbaugh was a restaurant critic? "The problem is, and dare I ... More >>

Reader: Is FIVE too much of a good thing?

Leigh Sullivan founded FIVE, a group of Denver chefs who cook across the country, back in 2008; the lineup, like Sullivan herself, has gone through some changes over the years. Sullivan recently relaunched her own marketing/public relations company, Leigh Sullivan Enterprises, and just announced the ... More >>

HUSH's upcoming pop-up dinners will spotlight dishes and cocktails from Hosea Rosenberg and James Lee's forthcoming restaurant

Lori MidsonJames Lee, a bartender at Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar, is teaming up with Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg to open a new restaurant -- but first, they'll spotlight their drinks and dishes at a HUSH event at mise en place.​ For the past several months, Phil Armstrong, Denver's princ ... More >>

Beers and Ears

A Wine Time

Taste of Vail

Pig porn from Cochon 555, aka the Super Bowl of Swine

Lori MidsonCochon 555 chefs Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson, Kelly Liken, Alex Seidel, Frank Bonanno and Jennifer Jasinski ​ Lard, have mercy on my soul. To say that I pigged out this weekend is the understatement of the year, and if I was porky before, you should see me now. In fact, I'm fairly ... More >>

Top Chef All-Stars: A fight to the finish, and then some

Richard Blais, still standing.​He hadn't actually lost, Mike Isabella explained after the judges named Richard Blais the winner of Top Chef All-Stars. It was just that they had inexplicably withheld the title from him. You really have to admire the man's cockiness, but nonetheless I've come ... More >>

Frasca's Bobby Stuckey at the center of Denver Cochon 555 pig fight

You be the judge. ​Cochon 555, the porkeriffic national competition that trots into Denver on Sunday, April 3, recently announced the five Colorado chefs combating for the Prince of Porc title: Jennifer Jasinski (Rioja, Euclid Hall and Bisto Vendome); Kelly Liken (Restaurant Kelly Liken); Alex ... More >>

Top Chef All-Stars: Life's a beach!

Cooking for the King.​Something weird and vampiric is happening to Mike Isabella and Richard Blais on Top Chef: Mike is getting chubbier and cockier by the week, while Richard shrinks visibly, becoming ever thinner and more irritable, muttering that he hates, hates, hates everything he cooks - ... More >>

Reader: Skip the Michelle Obama/Rush Limbaugh food fight? Fat chance

Rush Limbaugh, ash​Should Rush Limbaugh have commented at all on Michelle Obama's visit to Vail -- much less suggest that the First Lady, who has made childhood obesity her major cause, had no business eating short ribs? And did Cafe Society have any business getting into this political food f ... More >>

Michelle Obama eats well on Top Chef's Kelly Liken's ribs; you can, too, with this recipe

Kelly Liken​It's been a big week for Kelly Liken of Vail's Restaurant Kelly Liken, who was named a James Beard semi-finalist for Best Chef: Southwest (for the third time) -- and then fed Michelle Obama and three friends over the weekend. Liken recently competed on Top Chef, and Michelle Obama ... More >>

Top Chef All Stars: That's the way the cookie crumbles

​I tend not to like contrived and cutesy challenges, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the chefs putting together cookies for Sesame Street's Cookie Monster and his friends Elmo and Telly when they visited the set of Wednesday night's Top Chef, seeing everyone's expression lighten suddenly as ... More >>

Tickets now on sale for the culinary red carpet ride that's the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen

​Tickets to the 2011 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, the culinary breeding ground for the country's most extolled food personalities, chefs, grape gurus and their groupies, just went on sale yesterday, and you can snap up a ticket to the gustatory soiree, held June 17, 18 and 19, for $1,085 befo ... More >>

Jax Fish House Boulder rolls out a new menu under new chef de cuisine Adam Watts

​We've long been fans of happy hour at the Boulder outpost of Jax Fish House, 928 Pearl Street, where we can put down dozens of cold, briny oysters at just a dollar a pop. But if it's seafood you're after, the kitchen once run by Top Chef Season 5 winner Hosea Rosenberg is probably your best b ... More >>

Kelly Liken returns for tonight's Top Chef reunion episode

Kelly Liken returns for a Top Chef reunion.​We'll be seeing Vail's Kelly Liken at the Top Chef Reunion tonight. Kelly was among the four finalists who went to Singapore, then was sent home in the penultimate episode -- but not before cooking many dishes that won the judges' praise. Interesting ... More >>

Top Chef, D.C., round twelve: Out of this world!

Tiffany got jettisoned.​Tiffany got sent home from Top Chef this week. I was a little distressed when Arnold was told to pack his knives a few episodes back, because his problems were the fault of mean-spirited Lynne, and also I expected him to come up with some interestingly piquant dishes ov ... More >>

Top Chef D.C., round nine: Colorado loses a contestant

Kenny Gilbert got booted last night.​Are the folks at Bravo as bored with Top Chef as some viewers have started to be? No photos of the food on the website this week. No insider blogs. No Michael Voltaggio telling us how to make the winning dishes, which is the only way I can figure out why th ... More >>

Top Chef D.C., round six: A meaty gimmick

Michelle Bernstein​It's getting hard to watch Top Chef D.C. and harder to write about it. I keep waiting to feel the kind of excitement I felt about the show in the past. It may be that this is an uninteresting group of contestants, but I think it's more the smug idiocy of the organizers, and ... More >>

Presenting the Hosea Rosenberg photo album and your chance to vote on your favorite mug

Sometime between February of last year and now, Hosea Rosenberg, the Boulder cooker who won Top Chef: New York, got himself a Girl Friday personal assistant, name of Rachel Bachman, who doesn't approve of our photo choices -- specifically the photo below, which I snapped during a viewing party at th ... More >>

Tonight: StrEat Chefs get rolling at Chautauqua

​Boulder's Chautauqua provides the stunning setting for StrEat Chefs, a sampling of street food from all over the world, from the roads of Bangkok to the beaches of Mexico, delivered straight to your plate. Tonight, Hosea Rosenberg (the Top Chef winner who's introducing his own StrEat Chefs ... More >>

Tonight: Taste the South at Jax and Interstate

Hosea Rosenberg heads back to home base. ​Each month, Jax Fish House, 928 Pearl Street in Boulder, has been welcoming back Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg for the aptly named Hosea Rosenberg Monthly Dinner Series. June's theme: "New Found Love for New Orleans." Dinner starts at 6 p.m. tonight ... More >>

Got milkshake? Richard Blais accuses H Burger of copying his idea

Richard Blais, shaken but not stirred.​Former Top Chef contestant Richard Blais was in Denver recently, and he's still all shook up over what he found when he visited H Burger: a copycat version of his Burnt Marshmallow and Nutella milkshake. "Maybe I should just be flattered?" he asks in th ... More >>

Tonight: Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg cooks up a theme dinner

Hosea Rosenberg serves up a series.​Jax Fish House, 928 Pearl Street in Boulder, kicks off a new dinner series tonight. Every month, Top Chef champion Hosea Rosenberg will host a dinner based on a different theme. Tonight's is "Found in Translation: Inspiration from Hong Kong." Dinner starts ... More >>

New season of Top Chef includes two Colorado mountain cookers, Kelly Liken and Kenny Gilbert, but no Denver or Boulder chefs

​Top Chef, the often unrealistic reality show that made Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef of Jax-Boulder, a hometown hero when he emerged the conquistador two seasons ago, just released its listage of contestants for season 7, which will be filmed in Washington DC and premier on June 16 on Bravo. ... More >>

The Big Boss

Strange Sauce: The week in national food news

We know, you just threw up in your mouth a little.​The trailer for Jamie Oliver's new television show, Food Revolution, has been released. According to ABC, Oliver will attempt to transform the eating habits of a bunch of rednecks in Huntington, West Virginia, and rumor has it that he bawls w ... More >>

Gastro Gift Guide: Snow Day edition

​Where else, but in Colorado, does the temperature fluctuate seventy degrees in three weeks. WTF? When your new space heater craps out because it's been running for four days without a break, it's too cold. When your nose hairs freeze to the point of breakage upon stepping outside, it's too co ... More >>

Silver and Gold

Today's hit of Hosea Rosenberg hilarity

Lori MidsonTop Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg with fellow contestant Fabio Viviani​Okay, so Jax-Boulder superchef Hosea Rosenberg wins Top Chef: New York and, along with the top title, gets $100,000 to blow on opening a new restaurant. Except he hasn't opened a new restaurant. In fact, as I rep ... More >>

Bitter Bar's James Lee places fourth

​ Hosea Rosenberg may have won last season's Top Chef, but his luck didn't hold for Big Red F colleague James Lee, the Boulder mixologist who placed fourth at this weekend's Iron Bar Chef contest at the annual Santé Restaurant Symposium in New York. Which means Lee didn't get the $1,000 priz ... More >>

Hosea Rosenberg hosts Colorado harvest dinner at Jax Boulder

​Jax Boulder exec chef and Top Chef New York winner Hosea Rosenberg isn't hanging out a whole lot in the People's Republic of Boulder these days. His Facebook page says he's "heading into San Fran to find the city's best Bloody Mary," but presumably he'll accomplish that goal before 6:30 p.m ... More >>

A conversation with John Broening, of Duo and Olivea

Chef and Tell: John Broening

John Broening​"We'll have head cheese at Olivéa on Friday -- I expect to see you there," summoned the e-mail. The note - short and to the point -- was from John Broening, the executive chef at Duo and Olivéa: the former a restaurant in Highland with a field-to-plate, seasonal approach to foo ... More >>

Sober and not-so-sober observations from the Taste of the Nation

Lori MidsonStaff from Vesta Dipping Grill and Steuben'sYesterday afternoon, Denver's best chefs rolled out the culinary red carpet and rubbed tongs with smitten admirers and other do-gooders who showed up in droves at Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, a charity event that benefits anti-hunge ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, July 15 edition

Danielle Ate the Sandwich -- and then punched it, hard. Put up your dukes. Today in Backbeat Online: • Danielle Ate the Sandwich: Better than a bag of poop on fire! • Last Night: Paul Sprawl at the Laughing Goat in Boulder. • Hearsay bits: City Hall, Speakeasy Tiger, Torch the Wagon, Patrick ... More >>

Today: A celebrity cook-off, wine-tasting event and the kick-off to Telluride's wine festival

Melissa Harrison Tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m., TrueChild, a national organization that works to abolish child stereotyping, is hosting a reception, silent auction and the "True Flavors Celebrity Cook-off" at Mise En Place, 1801 Wynkoop Street. The match-up features two culinary teams, one led by Top Ch ... More >>

Talk Talk

Waylon Lewis brings big ideas to a bigger stage.

A few words with Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg

Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg is officially a very busy man. We all saw Rosenberg, the chef of Jax in Boulder, come out on top on Top Chef last week, and he's been on the talk-show circuit ever since. I tried to get into the West End Tavern for the final-episode party, but it was jammed. So instead, I de ... More >>

Ladies First

CU-Boulder salutes women’s work.

Colicchio goes a-whorin' for Diet Coke?

On Oscar night, the entire food world was abuzz. Not because of anything that happened during the Academy Awards ceremony, but because of one of the (million and one) commercials that showed during the proceedings: namely, the Tom Colicchio Diet Coke spot that appeared to show the Top Chef judge an ... More >>

Believe it or not, Ruby Tuesday has a good burger

Troy Guard: cottage cheese pimp, general of the TAG army

Oceanaire A Cool Breeze

Oceanaire A Cool Breeze