Christ, it’s hot. A zillion degrees hot, and this is the thing about Colorado that they never put in the tourist brochures. It’s all mountains and deep powder in the winter ads, young ski bunnies with wind-pinked cheeks. In the summer, it’s sun-dappled forest glades, cool streams, the variegated shade…
Let’s get something straight: It’s not vegetarians that I hate (I was one for a while), or even the idea of vegetarian cooking. It’s vegetarianism — like Catholicism or Republicanism — that gets my blood up. It’s the big, heaping portion of politicized dogma that comes on the side of…
I approached Sunflower like a nervous hunting dog: my nose in the air, all my hair on end. From half a block away, I tried to suss out the vibe of the joint, watching the crowds milling around the doors and patio, sniffing the breeze for any hint of patchouli,…
Everyone seems to be up in arms these days over the health and safety of genetically tinkered-with food — GMOs, as they’ve been labeled by the euphemism-happy public, for “genetically modified organisms.” Or “Franken-food,” as they’ve been dubbed by slightly more creative Luddites. Apparently people are convinced that Evil Mega-Agri-Corporations…
Jeff Cleary is in the house. Seen through the swinging doors leading into the kitchen, the chef-owner of Intrigue appears calm and entirely collected. There are seated tables — a few two- and four-tops waiting for dinner — but Cleary seems strangely unmoved. He’s not smiling, he’s not frowning, and…
A couple dozen Denver chefs, total, have been asked to visit since the James Beard House began hosting dinners by the nation’s culinary elite back in 1987. Only eleven local boys have made good since 1997, arguably the beginning of modern American gastronomy: the chef as celebrity and cooking as…
If you serve prime and it’s not bone-in, you may as well be a fucking Sizzler.” That’s Barry talking. Mister Fey, to some. Concert promoter and ticket broker, the guy who’s rumored to have once pulled a gun on a recalcitrant Axl Rose when the kilt-wearing prima donna dared to…
Here’s the thing about Sunday brunch at Pierre’s Supper Club: From the outside, the place, at 2157 Downing Street, looks closed. Sure, this fifty-year-old Denver institution can still pack ’em in on Friday and Saturday nights, but on Sunday afternoons — when you would think a supper club should be…
Before I moved to Denver a year ago, I’d taken a few turns through Colorado while satisfying my interstate lust. Many of my travels took me through Boulder, and every time I hit that city, Juanita’s (see review) was the first place I stopped. But until December 31, 1997, I…
When I moved to Denver almost a year ago, I knew next to nothing about the local restaurant scene. There were a few places along the Front Range with which I had a passing acquaintance. I knew Johnson’s Corner outside of Loveland, because it’s the second-best diner in the United…
I’ve put some strange things in my mouth — rats and worms and hooves and eyeballs — but there’s other stuff, purely pedestrian by comparison, that I won’t touch. Not even for money. Brussels sprouts, for example. Blech. Brussels sprouts are nothing but foul little cabbages with none of a…
I ran out of books on Father’s Day. I read fast, so this happens a lot, but like a drunk who always keeps a fresh bottle on hand for when his current one runs low, I like to have another book in the pipeline before I hit the last chapter…
We’re coming down to the wire. Before old-guard members of the Denver City Council surrender those big, comfy chairs to ten incoming freshmen, they’ll almost certainly vote on a proposed smoking ban for this city. Mayor Wellington Webb has made such a ban his top priority before he leaves office…
There are two items on the menu at Zaidy’s Deli: potatoes and everything else. Zaidy’s does great things with potatoes — truly phenomenal things for which it deserves a medal. Now if only those bastards at the American Farm Council’s tuber division would get off their asses and start planning…
“Here. You want to try something? Try this,” says James Purcell as he crosses behind the pickup truck parked in the Denver Zoo commissary garage. It’s 8 a.m., almost time for Purcell to make his first round of deliveries. The bed is filled to the sidewalls with fifty-pound bags of…
Yup, it’s that time again: The mailbags here at Bite Me HQ runneth over with letters, faxes, e-mails and the assorted detritus of this strange biz, so before they begin runneth-ing over into the next cubicle, I figured I’d deal with a few of them. First up, I’ve been getting…
It had been two years and three days since I last put on my whites and checks, and the ex-chef was convinced I was getting soft. I used to love my chef’s clothes: the clean white jacket — heavy cotton, starched stiff as a board — and loose-fitting check pants…
You know things are getting ugly when Charo, of all people, is threatening to drag your ass into court. The cuchi-cuchi girl is shaking all kinds of things at Bart DeLorenzo and his Spanish-themed nightclub/steakhouse empire, Sevilla Entertainment, which had booked her show into Sevilla Las Vegas, the second in…
The dining room at Cafe Berlin was empty when Laura and I walked past. Next door, Dario’s had a few tables, and the smell of roasting meat, garlic and red sauce licking out onto the street would ensure that it soon had a few more. A couple of early drinkers…
It was the end of my third meal at Indigo. The dinner plates had been cleared, the white tablecloth combed down. While Julie — my cover for this night’s clandestine activities — and I were picking at the rag ends of the dessert we’d shared, I waited for the hammer…
I tried to stay out of this fight. Really, I did. Way back in January, I made a promise to keep my nose out of politics and stick to food. I managed to give the whole Freedom fries/Freedom toast controversy a pass, because, frankly, it seemed too insipid to even…
Five minutes, okay?” “Five minutes. I’ll just run in and run out.” “Okay.” I fiddled with the radio, trying to get something good on the vintage-’70s push-button console. Matt got out of the car, two plastic bags full of Styrofoam takeout boxes in his hands, then leaned back toward the…
