Here’s the thing, says Leigh Jones: “I want a chef that has kitchen manager capabilities, and that’s not Brendon.” Last Thursday, during a routine manager’s meeting, Jones sat down with Brendon Doyle, who’d been running the line at Jonesy’s EatBar, 400 East 20th Avenue, for the past eleven months, and…

Behold the highlights from this week’s Cafe Society blog: 1. Sean Kenyon, the no-holds-barred bar baron at Steuben’s, takes on vodka — specifically whether or not it’s run its course — in this week’s Ask the Bartender, a new addition to Cafe Society World Headquarters. In case you’re wondering whether…

The board hasn’t changed in months, maybe years, quite possibly because regulars would stage a protest. But the paella, a mainstay since day one, continues to inspire and satisfy, even if the behavior in the kitchen seems a little too casual for a restaurant that’s shrouded in sensuality. Can you…

After fifteen years working in management at Pizza Huts across the country, Ted Huss was done — done with the corporate bullshit, done with inferior ingredients and done with chains. “I was frustrated and really discouraged with the way the business was going. It was all about profit, when it…

At this tiny Thai temple, stashed in a strip mall that’s nearly invisible from the street, the one-woman kitchen turns out generous plates and bowls of curries, noodles and stir-fries from the straight-ahead Americanized Thai menu. Go late in the afternoon, however, after the lunch crush has subsided, and you’ll…

Justin Brunson Masterpiece Delicatessen 1575 Central Street 303-561-3354 www.masterpiecedeli.com This is part two of Lori Midson’s Q&A with Justin Brunson, chef/owner of Masterpiece Delicatessen. To read part one of that interview, click here. Greatest accomplishment as a chef: Becoming a restaurateur. You work so many years in the trenches to…

“We’re in the very beginning stages of developing the menu concept, but there’s no hood and there’s no grease trap, so everything that we serve will be raw,” says Leigh Sullivan-Guard. That’s the idea behind TAG | RAW BAR, a new restaurant from Leigh and her husband, Troy Guard, the…

The menu is ambitious, vast and littered with flavor-bombed Mexican dishes, but it’s the soft corn tacos, thumped with meats perfumed with spices and char and topped with redolent salsas, that keep us coming back for more…and more…and more. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives…

Justin Brunson Masterpiece Delicatessen 1575 Central Street 303-561-3354 www.masterpiecedeli.com This is part one of Lori Midson’s Q&A with Masterpiece Delicatessen chef/owner Justin Brunson. You can read part two of this interview right back here tomorrow. It’s 2:30 p.m., late by lunchtime standards, but Masterpiece Delicatessen, the heavyweight sandwich shop in…

The last time I spoke with Nhanh Tran, the co-owner of Pho-natic, he described his mother, Oi Nguyen, as the “most generous woman in the world.” She’s renowned for giving away food to friends and family, 500 egg rolls at a time, he told me…

Another day, another street food truck. Denver chef and restaurant consultant Michel Wahaltere, who’s had his spoon in way too many soups to mention (short list: 9th Door, SportsBook, 5 Degrees, MiniBAR, Cucina Colore,), is officially taking his skills to the streets. Wahaltere, along with Mark Strazisar (Lucky Star, Sutra,…

I’m batshit crazy for Ethiopian food, which may explain why three of my dinners this past week have consisted of floppy injera, minchet, sambusas, kitfo, kikil and lamb and beef tibs, some of which are heaped on a communal platter at the restaurant where the above pic was snapped. Can…

It was only a matter of time before urban street food went suburban, and first (that we know of, anyway) to bring the street food movement to suburban asphalt are bigwigs Chris Amato, Peter Kudla and Rob Kuck, the visionaries behind the Vallagio at Inverness, which will soon unmask several…

Last week, four Denver restaurants — Fruition, Root Down, Squeaky Bean and Colt & Gray — got some major love from New York Times scribe Jay Cheshes, who spotlighted the restaurants’ field-to-fork endeavors. But The Times wasn’t the only paper doling out love to Denver: USA Today, in its round-up…

On August 15, the Food Network unleashed the premier of The Great Food Truck Race, in which seven teams comprised of the country’s top food truck slingers hit the asphalt to wheel around the country, all in an effort to sell the most food in whichever challenge city they’re parked…

See that big-ass burger up top? That’s the small version. Torpedoed with a chile relleno and other requisite toppings, It’s the newest addition to a board that’s already submerged in burger culture — although these aren’t your everyday burgers. Clearly. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who…

The above salad, bright with Colorado heirloom tomatoes chromed golden, eggplant, garnet and watermelon and boosted by stretchy burrata oozing cream, was exactly the kind of summer dish I was looking for after a week of gorging myself like a heathen. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone…

EatDenver’s Harvest Week, a seven-day jubilation that pays homage to Colorado’s bountiful crops, ends tonight, with nearly forty of the city’s top independent restaurants strutting seasonal menus showcasing locally sourced ingredients, libations and products. Think it’s too late to snatch a seat at one of the restaurants celebrating Harvest Week?…

Time and time again, in our weekly Chef and Tell interviews, we read about local kitchen commanders lamenting the dearth of Denver restaurant exposure on a national level. In fact, Jeff Bolton, exec chef of Second Home Kitchen & Bar, and the subject of this week’s Chef and Tell Q&A,…

In this week’s Chef and Tell interview, Jeff Bolton, the exec chef of Second Home Kitchen + Bar in the JW Marriott, reveals that he and his staff have a fetish for Burger King’s Whopper Jrs. But that’s not the only food obsession of Bolton and his crew. Bolton is…