Cash McCandless is a spunky seven-year-old who loves Jimmy Fallon, knock-knock jokes and root beer milk, says his mom, Shelly McCandless, the longtime manager of Avenue Grill in Uptown. But in 2012, after playing games with his grandma, Cash woke up in Children’s Hospital after suffering a seizure. In late…
Denver, says Dean Simon, is prime culinary territory for a “markedly unique concept,” in this case, a fast-casual, gourmet waffle sandwich shop that goes by the name of Bruxie, the “i” of which is roofed with black, red and yellow dots, the colors of which are representative of Belgium, home,…
I’m always leery of the steak-and-egg deals at breakfast joints, if only because the steak, in most cases, tastes as cheap as the price — and good luck getting it prepared mid-rare. But in the case of this steak — a T-bone — the kitchen not only managed to cook…
More than fifty years after originally staking its claim on a dirt road in the middle of rural Bumfuck Aurora, Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House, one of the longest-standing cow classics in Denver, has been put out to pasture, leaving the abandoned landscape strewn with empty cardboard boxes, plastic buckets, tattered furniture,…
Robert Alfaro Atticus 1125 East Evans Avenue 720-459-8273 tabletotavern.com/atticus This is part two of my interview with Robert Alfaro, chef of Atticus; part one of our interview ran yesterday. What do you enjoy most about your craft? Making people happy with good, wholesome food. Happiness comes from seeing a smile…
UPDATE: We have a winner of our Jax High West Oyster Fest contest, in which we asked Cafe Society readers to answer this question: How many people attended last year’s High West Oyster Fest? Congratulations to redpyrope, who came the closest with a guess of 628; the actual number is…
I’ll give the guy who made this margarita an “A” for effort and attitude, but it was clear from the taste — or lack of it — that this may have been his first rodeo. Can you guess where I’m drinking? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer…
Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with a spacious kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s best ingredients home with them and cook up a feast, and when they’re not…
Robert Alfaro Atticus 1125 East Evans Avenue 720-459-8273 tabletotavern.com/atticus This is part one of my interview with Robert Alfaro, chef of Atticus; part two of our interview will run tomorrow. Most of us have childhood food memories: Lucky Charms, chocolate-chip cookies, flipping our first egg, cracking the shell of our…
Just under a year ago, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson and Bobby Stuckey, co-owners of Frasca Food and Wine and the original Pizzeria Locale in Boulder, opened a second, more streamlined Pizzeria Locale in Denver in the former Il Vicino space at Sixth and Broadway. Then, late last year, Mackinnon-Patterson and Stuckey announced…
Earlier this morning, hundreds of chefs, restaurateurs, journalists and restaurant-industry groupies were eyeballing their computer screens and mobile phones, anxiously awaiting the news, which was live-streamed from the Publican in Chicago, announcing who would make it through to the James Beard Foundation’s finalists round, the nominees of which included seven…
Given Denver’s increasing proliferation of beef burger joints, it’s a welcome change to find an alternative, in this case a salmon burger that was as juicy as the gossip going on at the table behind me. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct…
After a half-dozen years commanding the line at Beatrice & Woodsley, opening exec chef Pete List, whose impressive resume also includes gigs at the Empire in Louisville and the long-gone Papillon Cafe Cafe, has departed that kitchen, he says, to “spread my wings and explore new opportunities.” The decision to…
Suffice it to say that I eat out more than the general population, unless, of course, the general population can catalogue more than 450 restaurant meals in a year — which is about the number of breakfasts, lunches and dinners that I stomached over the past year. Pathetic, isn’t it?…
The restaurant business, muses Mark Fischer, exec chef of Harman’s Eat & Drink, is “seriously peculiar.” Chefs, he continues, “have become really high-profile, and they’re granted an inordinate amount of admiration and given an inordinate amount of credit for the successes that are their restaurants, much of it completely justifiable.”…
Cafe Society served up four Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a mound of cheap — and cheap tasting — nachos from Agave Taco Bar to a bowl of awesome hot and sour soup bobbing with foie gras dumplings from Zengo to a sizzling vessel of bibimbap from a…
Yesterday, I bumped into a local chef slurping oysters at a restaurant that sells thousands of them every month, and the platter of briny bivalves sitting in front of him, he gushed, where magnificent. In fact, he went on to say that all the oysters he’d seen over the past…
I’m a sucker for a good hot and sour soup, and when the kitchen tosses in a foie gras dumpling or two, it’s definitely an added bonus. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to a Guess Where post is entered into…
Eric Cimino Luca D’Italia 711 Grant Street 303-832-6600 lucadenver.com This is part two of my interview with Eric Cimino, chef of Luca D’Italia; part one of our chat ran yesterday. What’s the best food- or kitchen-related gift you’ve been given? I love getting new cookbooks, especially the odd, quirky ones,…
Hey, restaurants: If you’re going to serve nachos, even if they’re $5 happy hour nachos, can you please take an extra ten seconds to melt the damn cheese? It’s bad enough that 90 percent of the chips are naked, but no one, not even those too drunk to see beyond…
John Holly’s Asian Bistro, which already boasts a duo of outposts across the city, including one in Lone Tree and a second in the Harvard Gulch neighborhood, just upped the count to three with this week’s opening in Washington Park, taking over the former Japon space at 1028 South Gaylord…
Eric Cimino Luca D’Italia 711 Grant Street 303-832-6600 lucadenver.com This is part one of my interview with Eric Cimino, chef of Luca D’Italia; part two of our chat will tun tomorrow. Like a lot of kids, Eric Cimino had a grand plan for when he arrived at adulthood. He wanted…
