For a Western city, Denver has been generating a lot of press for Southern food lately, and not just in this week’s review of Jezebel’s. Some of it was positive, like the excitement over Adrian Miller’s book Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a…
The first night I stopped in at Jezebel’s Southern Bistro and Bar, it was hotter than a bottle of Tabasco. With an overloaded swamp cooler and no ceiling fans in the back room where we were seated, and not a hint of breeze on the patio where we later moved,…
When Scott Durrah and Wanda James were trying to decide what to call their newest concept, a laid-back Southern restaurant and bar, they kept coming back to Jezebel’s Jezebel’s, the name of their basset hound. They liked it for its “undercurrent of excitement,” says James, “whatever that means to you.”…
When you talk to Duy Pham, executive chef of Epernay, he sounds like a scientist, jazzed about everything from sous vide cooking to the way acids interact with certain foods. But Pham also has an artistic side, which comes across in his cooking. “I’ve always been into art and try…
If anyone wonders if I get special treatment as a critic, they should have been at Epernay, the nine-month-old, high-gloss restaurant and sushi bar a stone’s throw from the Ellie, one evening last month. “I’m sorry,” the hostess said, “but we’re full tonight.” My husband and I looked at each…
Long before Linger and Bittersweet and Twelve, there was Tante Louise, a French restaurant at 4900 East Colfax Avenue that Corky Douglass ran for over three decades. There were many storied periods during this run, but one of the most lauded was when the kitchen was under the direction of…
It wasn’t all that surprising when Spuntino closed for a quick renovation in May. After all, owners/spouses Yasmin Lozada-Hissom and John Broening had been working for more than a year — she as pastry chef, he as executive chef — in a space that was launched by other people as…
The title of this week’s review of Spuntinomay be “The Grill Next Door,” but there’s nothing common about co-owner Yasmin Lozada-Hissom’s desserts. I caught up with the four-time James Beard Foundation semifinalist by e-mail, curious to see what the new season might mean both for Spuntino and for dessert trends…
Transitions can be hard, especially when big shoes are left to fill. Such was the case this summer when John Broening announced his departure for Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar, leaving the kitchen at Spuntino, the restaurant he owns with his wife, Yasmin Lozada-Hissom, in the hands of Nicholas…
Whoever would’ve guessed that Pizzeria Locale’s Neapolitan pie might get upstaged by … pudding? The butterscotch budino layered with chocolate ganache, caramel and whipped cream has surprised even co-owner Lachlan Patterson by how well it’s selling at the Denver outpost, which I review this week, especially since it’s not visible…
At the risk of sounding crass, I’m going to start this review in a place that gets no air time in 99.9 percent of food coverage: the bathroom. (I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.) I bring up the bathroom in Denver’s Pizzeria Locale not just because it’s spotless, as…
Creativity is a good thing, except in pizza, when cooks have been known to slap on ingredients better left to other things. Peaches, for example, are great inside a fluted, buttery crust, but not so good smothered with streusel on the dessert pizza I had at a festival this summer…
I loved the mole at Tamayo, the restaurant I review this week, and it got me thinking about another mole I’ve loved over the years. Not coincidentally, it was made by a Tamayo veteran, Sean Yontz, who learned the secrets of this complex sauce from a woman in Oaxaca who…
If someone at Visit Denver were to conduct a survey, I’ll bet most tourists would say that they still consider Denver a steakhouse town. It isn’t, as they’d surely concede after stops at the likes of Rioja, the Populist and ChoLon. But in 2001, when Tamayo flung open the doors…
Squash blossoms are popping up all over — not just in gardens, but in restaurants. At Beast + Bottle, they make an unexpected topping for flatbread, and at Spuntino they’re stuffed with ricotta and fried. The sturdy flowers make an appearance at Tamayo, too, as part of the filling for…
Underdogs exude a mysterious magnetic force, one unsubstantiated by scientists but understood by Chicago Cubs fans and anyone who’s ever filled out a bracket for March Madness. Don’t believe me? Just try to resist the pull of that upstart thirteenth seed. This force is far less powerful in the food…
At Beast + Bottle, servers love to tell the story of Bangs Island mussels nearly as much as people like to eat them. I’m glad I listened to the story: Just a few days after chef and co-owner Paul Reilly told me how he’d braved Maine’s chilly November temps to…
Many people dream about doing something different with their lives. Yaffa Hanouna, chef-owner of Yaffa’s Savory, actually did it. After fifteen years as the director of two preschools in Aurora, in February she opened Yaffa’s Savory, a Mediterranean cafe and market at 2200 South Monaco Parkway. See also: Photos of…
The menu at Beast + Bottle, the ever-packed restaurant launched this spring by brother-and-sister duo Paul and Aileen Reilly, is surprising in many ways. For starters, the menu features an abundance of unfamiliar ingredients and cooking terms, as I note in this week’s review. Then there’s the fact that the…
Like many writers, I’m an introvert — drawn to written rather than spoken words. My hunch is that Paul and Aileen Reilly, the brother-sister duo behind Beast + Bottle, have the opposite temperament. I say this based on admittedly circumstantial evidence: Paul’s ease and openness with me, a stranger, over…
What is it about kids that makes them want to take each other’s toys, invade each other’s space, and tattle on each other? Apparently not all siblings are like that, though, because Paul and Aileen Reilly, the brother-sister duo behind Beast + Bottle, not only got along as kids, they…
Tin Star Smokehouse, which I review this week, offers two homemade, sweet, ketchupy, Kansas City-style barbecue sauces. I tried squirting each of them on the meat on my BBQ plate, but they both left me craving sauce of another kind…from Carolina. See also: – Tin Star Smokehouse review: Everyone in…
