I’m supposed to be writing about chilaquiles. Instead, I’m eating them. Oh, I tried to sit at the computer and soldier on. Tried hard, in fact. But in the end, all those thoughts about cumin, serranos and lime got to me. So I did what any hungry critic would do:…

Michael Shiell of Milk & Honey Bar-Kitchen and Solitaire’s Mark Ferguson are borrowing a page from a pastry chef’s playbook, adding foie gras to dishes like truffles and bread pudding. But they aren’t the only chefs around town cleverly blurring the lines between sweet and savory and, in the process,…

Soon after my salad and dried-out meatballs arrived at Brik on York, I began to wonder: Had Elvis left the building? The thought persisted, buzzing about my head, on that night and others. I tried to shoo it away, looking for signs of greatness in the Neapolitan-style pizzas I’d heard…

Not long ago, foie gras was out. Not out like carbs were out in the ‘90s or gluten is out right now, but way out. So far out that chefs stopped putting it on menus for fear of being bad guys by association. How times have changed — in large part…

Michael Shiell created quite a stir when he picked the name for the restaurant that would mark his return to Denver after a three-year hiatus: It would be called Milk & Honey, after a biblical phrase synonymous with good times. It might have been more straightforward to call the place…

Last week I started a conversation about the rules of restaurant criticism — or rather, the modern-day lack thereof. Some guidelines remain in effect: Professional critics should not accept free food, for example. Others are increasingly optional, such as anonymity, though in my opinion a critic who publishes his or…

The story of Onefold is not a cautionary tale. There are no lurking dangers from which to learn, no pitfalls trapping overextended chefs, no overwrought concepts so common in the restaurant industry. Instead, this humble eatery with its simple decor and even simpler menu is more of a pep talk…

For years, there were hard-and-fast rules about restaurant criticism. Critics shall remain anonymous. Critics shall not accept free food. Critics shall eat more than one meal before forming an opinion, and won’t have said meals until the restaurant has been open long enough to work out the kinks. The Internet…

”Do you want to be as close to or as far away from the music as possible?” asked the hostess at Baur’s Restaurant and Listening Lounge, which opened last spring in the former downtown home of Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar. There was a band coming on later that…

The Farm House at Breckenridge Brewery is more than a place to drink beer and play corn hole while watching the sun go down. As I write in this week’s review of the Farm House, it’s Exhibit A of a bigger movement afoot, that of brewery-based restaurants that are draws…

There we were, two restaurant critics drinking coffee and talking shop — quietly, of course, so that no one around us could hear. “What’s big in Denver right now?” she asked, noting that in her home town, fried chicken and bourbon are all the rage. “Beer,” I replied, the answer…

Newcomers to the kind of thick-crusted, cheese-smothered pizzas served at the Good Son, the subject of my most recent review, might be tempted to call it deep dish. After all, it’s a heckuva lot deeper than what usually passes for pie in these parts, right? The thing is, what the…

Can there be a third act? That’s the question for the homegrown U Baron Group, which has mounted a string of restaurants in the former Lowenstein Theater complex since taking over a space there in 2012. The first run was Udi’s Pizza Cafe, which offered a combination of pizzas and…

Like the exquisite, twenty-layered baum cakes that have been spinning inside its imported rotisserie oven – affectionately dubbed the Red Dragon — the past few years, Glaze is a restaurant with many strata. It opened as a bakery, became a joint sushi bar-bakery for a brief period, then earlier this…

Eating dessert after a bowl of ramen is like ordering a brownie fudge sundae after downing a milkshake. It’s excess with a capital E, a feat best left to competitive eaters who swallow 62 hot dogs while the rest of us gawk in horror. That’s because these famously rich Japanese…

If you’ve watched the rise and fall of pork belly, Brussels sprouts and kale, you know that foods swing in and out of style. The same is true for beverages, and right now the drink of choice is sour beer. Made in barrels with fermented yeast and bacteria, it has…

Go big or go home. That seems to be the motto at Avery Brewing Company, which celebrated its 22nd anniversary this year by decamping to a new $27 million campus in Boulder. But the move did more than up Avery’s production capacity and give visitors a peek into operations via…

If Troy Guard’s combination of Pop Rocks and yellowtail sashimi at TAG hinted that he was a magician, his treatment of TAG|Raw Bar just down Larimer Street confirmed it. One day the subterranean space was TAG|Raw Bar, and then, before we could blink, he’d waved his wand and turned it…

Even in a town like Denver where exotic meats are popular, there’s one that’s hard to come by: yak, a shaggy-haired, short-legged mammal first domesticated in Tibet. So when I saw the brothel burger with a yak patty on the menu at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox, which I review this week,…

Over the years, I’ve come to think of Justin Cucci as a mad genius, twirling his thumbs and cackling as he ponders what dominion to conquer next. Who else could take a gas station and some vegetables and make Root Down one of the coolest seats in town? Who else…

The gardens at Solitaire – which I review this week — are stunning, with winding pathways, a fountain and blossoms of every color providing an unparalleled backdrop to chef-owner Mark Ferguson’s artistic, seasonally-inspired cuisine. But the flowers aren’t just pretty to look at; they provide oft-overlooked inspiration in the form of edible garnish. Curious whether…