The end of August and beginning of September are pure murder in the restaurant industry. Diners are sick of summer and waiting for the first chill of autumn. Seasonal menus are growing stale, business is glacial when there's any at all.
In the kitchens, the end of summer is just something you have to get through, a grinding slog through the last hot days, the last slow nights. Everyone's eyes are on the approaching holiday season — distant but just visible over the horizon. Chefs are dreaming of potatoes, of pork loins and root vegetables, of pumpkin and cinnamon and apples and winter stews. Owners are frantically poring over their paperwork, trying to figure out how to keep the lights on until the leaves start turning and the first Thanksgiving and Christmas parties go on the books. And the cooks are just marking time: the rookies complaining about the short nights, the slow services, amusing themselves with the cooking wine and waitresses, the veterans knowing all too well that this is a time for resting, for pacing themselves and conserving energy for the push that will come as soon as the temperatures start dipping below broil.
Though I'm no longer a cook, my own schedule is still intimately tied to the seasonal rhythms of the chef and line-dog. Late summer is a slow time for restaurant news, too. But as soon as we get a little snow on the mountaintops (not a double entendre) and a little gold on the aspens (also not a double entendre), the Denver scene just explodes with stories.
Last week, no fewer than ten people reached out to tell me (with barely disguised glee) that Chi Bistro (1066 South Gaylord Street) is no more. Now, far be it from me to take undue pleasure in someone else's failure, but I'm not above indulging in a little culinary schadenfreude, and truth be told, I hated this restaurant more than just about any other place in town. In my February 22 review, "Loveless," I took it to task for its many, many failings. "When Chi Bistro opened," I wrote, "it billed itself as a cool neighborhood bistro offering Asian-influenced American cuisine — a worn and overwrought description of a style that hasn't been cutting-edge since...God, I don't even know when. The late '80s, maybe. Since the explosion of American sushi restaurants and the co-opting of culinary education programs into hackneyed art schools for chefs who'd be better off doing boardwalk portraiture than cooking my dinner. 'Asian-influenced American cuisine' is a buzzword phrase that essentially means 'Danger: Here be frisée.' Wise diners know enough to stay well clear."
Chi Bistro had a terrible concept, no sense of direction and a menu that I wouldn't have sampled on a bet were it not my job to do so. The only thing that gave the place any legs at all was an excellent location on Old South Gaylord, a nice (if somewhat cold) space. Which is why I'm now putting out the call to all you sous chefs, mercenary execs and short-timers who've been fantasizing about a house of your own: Go check out this spot. I'm not much of a money guy, and I don't know dick about real estate, but I do know restaurants, and I know that a good and conscientious chef with a solid crew behind him could put a killer operation in here.
And for the love of Christ, no more Asian fusion, okay? If I see one piece of frisée or even a hint of lemongrass, I'm gonna chain myself to the door naked and piss on anyone who comes close.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: I got word late last week that Jon Pell has sold his Sunflower Restaurant (1701 Pearl Street, Boulder) and headed back to the East Coast. But he's left the place in good hands. Jef Forsberg bought the joint outright, and recently returned from an extended tour of New York City to take over operations.
A serious Manhattan veteran with years of dish-washing, line-cooking and big-hat positions behind him (as well as a whole bunch of book-learnin' courtesy of the French Culinary Institute), Forsberg did time with Didier Verot at Aix, at the French-Malaysian Fatty Crab ("Like nothing else," Forsberg told me. "Jam-packed all day long until 4 a.m.") and Danny Meyer's Hudson Yards Catering before deciding that what he really wanted was a different kind of life. Namely, one where he could actually own a restaurant of his own.
"I was earning my bones out there," Forsberg said, "but in New York.... You know, it's a little more expensive out there."
Yeah. Just a smidge.
"So in New York it was impossible," he continued. "But here I could actually own a restaurant outright without a whole corporation, a whole bunch of other people with their own ideas."
Spoken like a true chef. Essentially, Forsberg's idea is to build on all the good work that Pell has already done with Sunflower — my favorite example of how vegetarians and non-vegetarians can live (and dine) together, side by side in peace and harmony. "It's going to be the same concept," he explained, meaning that Sunflower will still serve its vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free cuisine right alongside the excellent animal proteins and organic everything else on the menu. "A lot of my beliefs fell right in line with Jon's, so, yeah, it was easy," he said. "To be honest, not all vegetarians and vegans hang out exclusively with other vegetarians and vegans, right? So why not have a place where everyone can eat?"
In New York these days, everything is about organic-this and ethically-farmed-that, about terroir and artisanal producers. "Everyone knows that's where the best food is," Forsberg said — meaning not New York, necessarily, but coming from organic producers and those concerned with seasonality and place. "So doing this here didn't seem like that much of a stretch."
When I talked to Forsberg, he'd been at his post as chef-owner for three weeks, still cooking from Pell's old Sunflower menu while he and his staff work at putting together their own, which is scheduled to drop sometime around the second week in October. He was tired but exhilarated — thrilled with his new opportunity — and told me he'd been putting in 115-hour weeks like that was nothing, the most natural thing in the world.
"I've done this before," he said, laughing. "I know what's involved in running a great restaurant."
Leftovers: One of the strangest sandwich operations I've ever seen has appeared at 8000 East Belleview Avenue in Greenwood Village, in a former mortgage brokers' office — one of the many that must be vacant these days. Erbert & Gerbert's Subs and Clubs opened last month but celebrated its grand opening on September 20.
And why is this place so strange? Well, for starters, its mascots (and namesakes) are two time-traveling brothers — Erbert and Gerbert Herbert — who are nine and seven and a half years old, respectively. Their best friends are Halley's Comet, a caveman named Bornk and a happy-go-lucky skeleton — and all the stuff served in the joint is named after the brothers, their buddies or the adventures they've had. In truth, the place is the forty-somethingth location of a sandwich chain started a couple of decades back in Wisconsin by Kevin Schippers, who created a concept based on a series of bedtime stories told by his father, David. Weird as it sounds, this completely imaginary foundation has worked well. Not only does the chain have something of a cult following in the Midwest, but business has doubled since 1995.
The menu is tight and to the point: fourteen sandwiches and a couple of soups, including chili. More important, the place will stay open until 2:30 in the morning on the weekends, in case a certain restaurant critic (or anyone else) has a sudden late-night craving for a capicola, ham and salami sub.
Since last November, when Emogene Patisserie suddenly closed, its space in Belmar has stood empty — large, roundish and sitting on a prime piece of real estate right across the street from Sean Yontz's Chama. But now Wasabi Sushi Bar is frantically staffing up in anticipation of an October 1 opening in that location. Or at least that was the opening date posted on the front door when I stopped by to check the place out two weekends back — although just inside that front door, the space was still a gutted, dusty mess. But hey, the start of the month is still a few days off...
Also empty is the Coral Room space over in Stapleton; the joint closed last week with no explanation. Like Chi, this Coral Room didn't rank high on my list of favorite restaurants; unlike Chi, it wasn't hopeless. The original location in Highland, at 3489 West 32nd Avenue, is still up and running.
