Ron Tarver has owned the Broadway building a block north of Alameda that houses Bardo Coffee House for some time, but when he was looking for a new tenant to replace a business that vacated after ten years, he ended up drawing up plans for his own venture instead: a…
Constantly searching for a perfect place to do work was a battle that Mandy Stevens fought every day as a freelancer. So a month ago, she revealed plans to open her own: she and her husband, Kristian Barowsky, took over the Buffalo Exchange space on 13th Avenue and are building…
It took some time for partners Kimbal Musk, Hugo Matheson and Jen Lewin to cement a deal to bring to bring The Kitchen to Denver, after building the original Kitchen in Boulder eight years ago. But now, following nine months of planning and construction, they’re just a week from opening…
Bobby Stuckey’s wine team at Frasca Food and Wine is one of the most formidable in the state, and the crew is frequently praised for its deep, well-built cellar and the knowledgeable, well-spoken sommeliers who create unforgettable pairing experiences for diners, whether their taste is California Cabernet or Austrian Gruner…
In the last two years, two Argentine restaurants have tried to bring South American cuisine to the corner of 38th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard, but neither was able to get anything going. The most recent resident, Caminito Tango, shuttered quietly earlier this year after taking over the space from Viejo…
Yesterday, Josh Burbank, barman at Jax Fish House, showed us how he makes homemade root beer. Now he’s weighing in on his mentors, behind-the-bar antics gone awry, and putting his blood, sweat and tears into every drink…
As bartenders in this town dive deeper into their craft, we’ve seen a lot of housemade sodas pop up on lists. Several places make their own tonic, for instance, and a few turn out their own ginger beers. We know of places trying to work out the kinks of more…
Denver has an abundance of Vietnamese restaurants, all devoted to a culinary canon that marries French and Chinese cooking into dishes that are delicious whether you’re eating noodles on the street or chowing down at a formal feast. Dozens of pho shops dot Federal Boulevard and South Havana Street, and…
When Brett Zimmerman and his team at the Boulder Wine Merchant are throwing an event, you’d be wise to rearrange your schedule and get there. The master sommelier offers some unique opportunities to taste rare wines in fun contexts, thereby expanding the horizons of his buyers and giving wine fans…
A year ago, Bryan Dayton and Steve Redzikowski were just hitting their stride at Boulder’s Oak at Fourteenth, garnering national accolades in the process. And then on March 9, fire broke out in the chimney of the wood-burning oven, forcing Oak to close for months so that the entire space…
In just a week and a half, the Denver outpost of The Kitchen will make its debut on 16th Street, extending the community-based restaurant empire Kimbal Musk and Hugo Matheson began in Boulder eight years ago to the Mile High City. And while Musk has promised that the Denver space…
New Saigon is one of the oldest Vietnamese restaurants in Denver, and its kitchen is one of the most comprehensive, turning out not just pho, but hundreds of dishes from Vietnam’s culinary canon. For this week’s review, I stopped by the restaurant that’s been under the same ownership for 25…
New Saigon may not be the oldest Vietnamese restaurant in town, but it comes close — nearby T-Wa Inn opened in 1984, beating New Saigon by just a year. Current owners Thai Nguyen and Ha Pham took it over in 1987, and their kitchen has been turning out a vast…
Denver Tofu has been providing this city’s restaurateurs and consumers with a local source of tofu for forty years. But as we reported last week, Haruhisa Yamamoto, who has owned the company since the 1970s, is closing his factory and leaving the business. “The plant is under eminent domain by…
Outposts of Bubbachinos — the burrito-and-green-chile chain owned by Leonard Cordova, a grandson of the original Chubby’s owner, Stella Cordova — have expanded so quickly in this town over the last few years, we can barely keep up…
What’s your favorite shrimp dish?” my friend asked our waiter. He’d been standing beside our cramped booth, shoulders slumped, holding a small notepad in one hand and studiously avoiding our eyes while we studied the huge menu and sucked down the sugary, freshly made lemonades he’d slid across the table…
Sherry, a fortified Spanish wine that ranges from light and dry to round and sweet, has fallen by the wayside as a fashionable beverage. In fact, we’re willing to bet that today more people associate sherry with old ladies or cooking wine than with something they’d pair with dinner. Brett…
Over the last few months, I went from the worst shape of my life to the best while continuing to eat like a food critic. Don’t punch me in the face; instead, read how I did it in this series: It’s been almost a year since that full-length mirror-initiated wake-up…
Bill Yalch may be a Pittsburgh native, but it took just a few trips to the southwest for him to become utterly obsessed with New Mexican food — namely, green chile. “If you live in Pittsburgh, you have no idea what good huevos rancheros are,” he admits, adding that he…
Michael Pollan — journalist, advocate and patron saint of sustainability in our food system — was in Denver this week to speak to a crowd at the Paramount about the importance of understanding where our food comes from. After his talk, he headed to Fuel Cafe, where he had a…
In this interview, Root Down bar manager Mike Henderson weighs in on the formation of the Colorado Bartenders Guild, counting to four and the rise of the beverage professional…
Gary Lee Bomar first inked the deal on an abandoned garage on South Broadway last year, and since then, he’s been working hard to overcome a series of liquor license fights that have derailed the opening of Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub. There was light at the end of…
