Grilled beef tongue, one of our favorite dishes of 2017, at Annette.
Danielle Lirette
2501 Dallas Street, Aurora
720-710-9975
Located in Stanley Marketplace, Annette is a beautiful restaurant. Flooded with light, the contemporary space is dotted with natural touches — planters with live trees, live plants on every table — that make the room feel sophisticated, not stark. While the restaurant pushes boundaries with its small-plates menu — think beef tongue and marrow toast — it follows in the footsteps of many small-plates eateries that anchor our dining scene, not least of which is Acorn, where chef-owner Caroline Glover previously worked. Sodas are made in-house and come in flavors such as rosemary and lemongrass-herb. Seasonal ingredients are revered; pickled accents pop up everywhere. A wood-fired grill adds a cozy rusticity that you smell when you walk in the door. The restaurant is at its best when showcasing Glover’s take on comfort food: pillowy gnocchi, whole fish with seasonal sauces, grilled carrots and snap peas, and housemade ice cream sandwiches.
"El Gran Combo" guacamole with guajillo-pistachio mojo, orange and plantain chips at Candela Latin Kitchen.
Mark Antonation
1691 Central Street
303-477-4582
Central Bistro & Bar owner Isiah Salazar and chef Jesse Vega converted their breezy bistro into a pan-Latin lounge this past summer, compiling a roster of tacos from Salazar's upbringing and Puerto Rican specialties from Vega's family, along with a few other dishes from Central and South America. The result is a restaurant loaded with intensity and soul, with dishes that leap from the plate with joy while maintaining a heart of pure comfort. Mofongo, the national dish of Puerto Rico, is the star, but bright ceviches, meats drenched in cooked-down sauces, and homey empanadas make up a lively accompanying cast. Central Bistro may have been hot, but Candela burns just as bright.
Cattivella
10195 East 29th Avenue
303-645-6779
In 2016, Elise Wiggins left her longtime position as executive chef at Panzano to pursue her vision of opening the Italian restaurant she'd always wanted to own. And with Cattivella (which means "naughty girl" in Italian), she's created the kind of restaurant that reflects her many experiences from traveling, working and eating in Italy. There's the wood-fired pizza oven used for far more than just pizzas; even beans are slow-cooked in glass flasks nestled in hot embers. There's the adjustable wood grill that gives meats (much of it brought in whole and butchered on site) and vegetables a rustic, old-world depth of flavor. And there are the housemade breads and pastas that separate Cattivella from the standard bistro or trattoria. A small cooler under the counter contains primal cuts of beef dry-aging for weeks for customers who want a little something special in a steak; a gluten-free menu offers housemade pasta and pizza options without sacrificing quality. You're sure to feel spoiled — and even a little naughty — enjoying all types of delights at this unabashedly Italian eatery.
Cocktail ingredients and proteins both get a turn on the wood-fired grill at Citizen Rail.
Mark Antonation
1899 16th Street
303-323-0017
Hotel restaurants don't have much of a reputation for inventive, chef-driven fare. But those who have enjoyed meals at Panzano in the Hotel Monaco, less than a mile from Citizen Rail, know that its owner, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, isn't content to offer bland tourist fare to please the masses; rather, artisan food production — like the handmade bread and pasta — is more the norm. That's the case at Citizen Rail in the Hotel Born, too, led by executive chef Christian Graves, who moved to Denver from San Diego, where he was in charge of another Kimpton restaurant. The heart of the restaurant is an open kitchen with several wood-burning grills, where everything — from dry-aged steaks to cocktail garnishes — is kissed with flame and smoke. But behind the scenes, a larger kitchen holds a butchering room where whole animals are brought in and broken down, providing cuts typical of steakhouse slates but also leaving room for oxtail, lamb sausage, rabbit loin and a decadent burger made from fresh-ground short rib and brisket. Yes, it's a meat-lover's paradise, but it's also so much more.
Concourse Restaurant Moderne
10195 East 29th Drive
720-550-6934
Concourse debuted in April as the third Denver restaurant from chef/restaurateur Lon Symensma, after ChoLon and Cho77. The Stapleton eatery represents a bridge between Symensma's past and future; the menu is dotted with international influences but defies easy categorization. "The one word I wanted it to be is 'sexy,'" the chef explains. And "sexy" is the right word to describe the style of Concourse, with its undulating dining-room ceiling made from seventy curvaceous wood slats, its sleek tile surfaces in blacks and whites, and its brass and gold finishes that add elegance to every nook and cranny of the space. The menu, overseen by chef/partner Luke Bergman, feels equally thought out, with a concise roster — only seventeen dishes appear on the dinner menu — left as a single list, not broken down into appetizers, mains or sides. Although European technique is evident in emulsions, reductions and vinaigrettes, the chef says he avoided the overuse of butter and cream, instead relying on "aggressive but not heavy flavors."
El Five
2930 Umatilla Street
303-524-9193
El Five isn’t just a restaurant, it’s an experience. Perched on the fifth floor of a new building in LoHi, the restaurant — run by the group behind Linger and Root Down — commands breathtaking views of downtown and the mountains. But the views inside the walls are just as mesmerizing. People are everywhere — down corridors that lead to view-drenched dining rooms, standing, sitting, ordering drinks, saving seats, sharing steel pans of paella, laughing and leaning in across velvety booths to be heard over the primal thump of a dance beat. Gleaming black surfaces reflect light from the wraparound windows, and a mosaic of hundreds of hexagonal mirrors make a kaleidoscope of faces and beams of light. The menu skews toward tapas, so everything is meant to share, from lamb sausage with hummus to patatas bravas to matzoh-ball soup dumplings. Don’t be shocked by the paella prices: Those steel pans of crisped rice loaded with rabbit confit or seafood are also designed to feed the table.
The desserts are as unusual as the dinner options at Emmerson. Ingredients include buckwheat, matcha tea powder, bonito caramel and cucumber sorbet.
Mark Antonation
1600 Pearl Street, Boulder
303-953-9852
There are restaurant "concepts" — easy to define in a word or two, recognizable in format by potential customers — and then there are restaurants. For a new eatery aiming to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner from a team of creative and forward-looking chefs and bakers, a pat definition isn't easy, or even desirable. That's the case at Emmerson, which opened in August. Under executive chef/partner Michael Gibney and pastry chef/partner Jeb Breakell, the cuisine careens between the familiar and the astonishing. A straight-up bodega breakfast sandwich appeals to the New Yorker in all of us, and croissants crackle in a pitch-perfect French accent, but dinner challenges guests with unusual combinations of flavors and textures. On the opening menu, jiggly raw oysters robed in velvet sheets of raw beef shouldn't have worked, but they did, tied together with sharp mustard, radish and scallions. Fresh pastas are dressed in both simple peasant wear and stylish modern couture. Emmerson offers something edgy lacking in many other establishments: excitement and anticipation — for the next dish out of the kitchen and the next visit to see what's new.
Señor Bear
3301 Tejon Street
720-572-5997
Chef/owner Max MacKissock and executive chef/owner Blake Edmunds have worked on numerous projects together, but Señor Bear is the purest distillation of their intelligence and adventurousness. Where the original Squeaky Bean (where MacKissock and Edmunds both worked) and Jezebel's once stood, the compact but window-lined space now houses Señor Bear — larger, lighter and more festive than its predecessors, thanks to sparkling Peruvian mirrors and the soft glow of the long, central bar. There’s a temptation to categorize the restaurant as Mexican, given its hefty margaritas and queso fundido, plus carnitas and “el pollo bronco” chicken strips to customize in tortillas with an enticing array of sides. But the menu is more broadly Latin American, and the standout dishes — such as Peruvian saltado made with broccoli, not beef, and Oaxacan mole negro with squash — reveal these subtle influences while showcasing the creativity of the kitchen.
Tavernetta brings upscale Italian cuisine from the owners of Frasca to Union Station.
Danielle Lirette
1889 16th Street
720-605-1889
Standing in front of Tavernetta, the new Italian restaurant from Frasca Food and Wine owners Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, you almost wouldn't guess you were in Denver — despite being only a stone's throw from Union Station. New hotels and apartment buildings crowd in around the stone facade of the eatery (as if peering down to see what's on the menu), and a train platform stretches off into the distance. Surely this is the transportation hub of some major East Coast or European city, not our quaint Denver, where only a few years ago weeds and chain-link fences sprouted from a dirt lot where Tavernetta now stands. Visionary forces are at work in this sector of downtown, and Stuckey and Mackinnon-Patterson are now a part of that. The food of various Italian regions is the theme of the menu, from well-known ports of call like Venice to hidden gems such as Trapani, on Sicily's far shore. Chef Ian Wortham has taken time to travel through these regions in search of unique and interesting flavors, adapting them as needed for Denver tastes and available ingredients. The result is magnificent, bustling to the point just shy of chaos, and almost overwhelming with its brand of hospitality that makes you feel as if every one of the dozens of staffers on hand are there just for you.
This Cinco Jotas Ibérico de Bellota ham (left) symbolizes Ultreia's commitment to Spanish bar food.
Danielle Lirette
1701 Wynkoop Street
303-534-1970
The newest restaurant from Jennifer Jasinsky and Beth Gruitch's Crafted Concepts group (which also includes Rioja, Stoic & Genuine, Bistro Vendôme and Euclid Hall) launched inside Union Station at the beginning of December with a slate of Spanish, Basque and Portuguese bar bites — tapas, pintxos, petiscos — as the main attraction. Little sandwiches stuffed with pungent cheeses; picks and cones loaded with imported ham, spicy sausages and grilled vegetables; and small plates packing big flavor draw guests to the bar, where the sherry flows and cocktails come in flavors sharp and tangy or deep and smoky. Bigger appetites can settle into a booth or at a table on the mezzanine above the kitchen for whole trout, octopus stew or leg of lamb redolent of African spices. At once elegant and raucous, Ultreia captures the spirit of the Mediterranean with a lively, not-too-serious vibe.
