Reader: My advice to the new critic is don’t look at comments

We’ll publish our first review by our new Cafe critic, Gretchen Kurtz, next week, and in the meantime, you’ll have plenty of chew on when our point/counterpoint on tipping appears here tomorrow. But as commenters and critics alike know all too well, there’s never any shortage of material on Cafe…

Reader: LoDo has declined with the rise of other foodie areas

Charlie Palmer, the celebrated New York-based chef and restaurateur who owns and operates dozens of restaurants across the country, will close Charlie Palmer’s District Tavern and Wazee Wood-Fire Pizza at the end of dinner service — less than a year after he first rolled into Denver. Did he misjudge the…

John Elway caught The Book of Mormon…on Broadway

John Elway has plenty of fans. But two of them could soon rival Number 7 on the Colorado celebrity scale. When they met with the local press to discuss The Book of Mormon , creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said that if there was anyone they wanted to see…

Reader: This chef’s arrogance is off-putting

Aaron Bennett, the exec chef of Boulder’s Bácaro Venetian Taverna, is the focus of this week’s Chef and Tell interview, and some of his comments already have readers simmering. The one that seems to be causing the most consternation? Bennett’s list of pet peeves: “People who come into a restaurant…

Westword has a new Cafe critic

And the wait is over. On September 6, we’ll publish the first review by our new Cafe critic: Gretchen Kurtz, the latest in a list of distinguished Westword restaurant reviewers that stretches back three decades and includes Laura Shunk, Jason Sheehan, Kyle Wagner and John Kessler…

Reader: That British Bulldog review was a dog!

No good deed goes unpunished. While we’ve been looking for a new restaurant reviewer, Jenn Wohletz has been lending a hand, writing full-length pieces that play off her “Jenn in Chains” posts on Cafe Society. Last week, for example, she took on the British Bulldog, one of nineteen links in…

Reader: The Book of Mormon is twisted and fabulous!

Thank God! After all the anticipation, we were worried that The Book of Mormon — written by hometown boys Matt Stone and Trey Parker — wouldn’t live up to the hype, and we’d be disappointed by their Broadway show on this first stop on its road tour. But Mormon is…

Metro tuition deal for undocumented students gets NYT story

Metro started classes yesterday, with a new name — Metropolitan State University of Denver — as well as new buildings (including a hotel filled with art by Metro students, faculty and alums), new programs and a controversial new tuition structure for undocumented students. That Metro move earned the school a…