Best Taste of Naples 2007 | Via | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Taste of Naples

Via

Two things saved Via from slipping into that great, yawning pit of mediocrity above which so many restaurants hang. First, there was last fall's hiring of chef James Mazzio and his decision to stand his post right on the line. And second, there were the pizza ovens -- real wood-fired ovens of the very, very old-school variety that could turn out similarly old-school pizzas of the Neapolitan variety. As a matter of fact, these pizzas were so authentic that Via was actually certified by the United States branch of the Associazione della Vera Pizza Napoletana (essentially the Italian pizza police), which speaks to the authenticity of Via's product. But the true arbiter is always taste, and one bite of the three-cheese, prosciutto and arugula Parma pizza is enough to make anyone a believer.

Best International Pizza

Buenos Aires Pizzeria

Buenos Aires has long been a magnet for immigrants. Successive waves of wanderers from Italy, Africa, Asia and elsewhere have washed up in that cosmopolitan city, and each group has brought a little taste of their homeland with them. And now we have all those tastes here in Denver at Buenos Aires Pizzeria, where Buenos Aires native Francis Carrera serves all the variegated flavors of his home town in pizza form. Skip the more traditional pies in favor of something unusual, something you've never had before -- hearts of palm, maybe, or a pie speckled with bits of hard-boiled egg. Then make a note to return for gnocchi night or one of the kitchen's excellent Cuban sandwiches.

Best Taste of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires Grill

Buenos Aires Pizzeria features the full spectrum of Argentine immigration in pizza form, but Francis Carrera's Buenos Aires Grill goes much deeper, offering perfect renditions of many of the international plates that have fed generations of Buenos Aires residents and shaped the cuisine of that city. The focus at this lovely restaurant is definitely meat -- a churrasco board dominates -- but so many excellent plates can be found hovering around the edges of the menu that one meal here just leaves you wanting more. The blood sausage is the best we've ever had, the bacalao (salt cod) an upscaled version of a peasant classic, and almost anything coming off the grills tastes of a deep cultural understanding that's rare in even the most rigorously authentic ethnic restaurants.

Best Taste of Latin America

Sabor Latino

Denver has always had plenty of Mexican restaurants -- old Mexican, new Mexican, regional Mexican, Mexican done both fancy and plain. But it wasn't until recently that we started tasting the true potential of internationally influenced Latin American cuisine. That potential is best realized at Sabor Latino, a charming spot that serves up ceviche, bandeja paisa with plantains and Colombian chicharrones, Chilean bride's soup in a huge bowl filled with fish and shrimp and baby clams (because that's just what a new bride wants on her wedding night: clam breath) and big, big drinks. The menu is like an arrow pointing the way for chefs looking for new inspiration in the coming years.

Best Central/South American Restaurant

Los Cabos II

Los Cabos II picks up extra points for authenticity. Well, authenticity -- and the giant stuffed llama. When the dining room is quiet, this restaurant can (and does) double as a sort of Peruvian cultural museum -- but it's best during the lunch and dinner rushes, when everyone's ordering and then digging into huge plates of multi-ethnic South American grub. From the simplest dishes of lomo saltado and strange Chinese/Spanish fusions to the seriously Spanish paella specials, mustardy potato salad and weekend buffets, everything is delicious and served in huge portions by a staff that's as friendly as the one at the corner diner.

Best Taste of Lima

Lim�n

Chef/owner Alex Gurevich had some sort of epiphany during a trip to Peru a couple of years back. He saw the blooming of an entirely new cuisine based on the borderless, international flavors of traditional South American cooking and came back to Denver with the desire to open one of the first Novoandino restaurants in the United States. That's exactly what he's done with Limn, combining the authentic, sometimes shocking native tastes and juxtapositions of Peruvian food with his own sense of French technique and plate design, for a menu that's unlike anything ever seen in Denver. Starches and sauces are the secret here, and because many of the dishes are so different (cold potatoes, mashed lentils, chile and gooseberry demi), they must be tasted to be believed.

Best Fried Plantains and Ceviche

Red Tango

Cassandra Kotnik
Fried plantains and ceviche aren't the only dishes that Red Tango does well, but they're the dishes that Red Tango does better than anyone else in town. Strange combination plates of enchiladas and tortas, ceviches, Italian ravioli stuffed with crushed black beans and topped with butterflied prawns soaked in ancho chile -- the menu has these, too, and we've tried them all. But what we keep coming back for are the bowls of bittersweet, astringent raw orange roughy and little fingerling shrimp dressed in lime, chile and onion, and the thick-cut, buttery, sweet fried plantains that are like God's gift to a Southern sweet tooth.

Best Raw Fish

Sushi Den

Sushi Den
The worst fights we've ever seen at Sushi Den haven't been over the last piece of o-toro, but over the last seat at the sushi bar on a Friday night. And that's odd, because we'd punch a nun if she was standing between us and some of the brilliant, beautiful, achingly fresh fish brought in by the convoluted and murderously expensive delivery system that Toshi, Sushi Den's owner, has been laboring for twenty years to perfect. As a result of those Herculean efforts, you can be eating fish on South Pearl Street on Saturday night that was sold Saturday morning on the floor of the Nagahama market in Kukuoka, Japan, and was swimming in the ocean on Friday. There aren't many other restaurants where you can do that -- none in Denver, and few in the country. As a result, this is the only place in town where we'll lay out the greenbacks for real o-toro, where we'll wait an hour or more for surf clam and eel, where we'll fight off that nun for the bright-orange uni presented in a simple slip of black seaweed.

Best Sushi Restaurant

Sushi Sasa

Sushi Sasa/Instagram
At Sushi Sasa, a meal isn't just about the food, it's about the whole experience of dining. With its white-on-white decor, attentive servers, jewel-box space (with an overflow bar and lounge downstairs) and a menu that stretches the idea of nouvelle Japanese beyond just the over-played tricks of torch-seared salmon skin and sushi-with-sauce, dinner here is a true adventure. And with a chef as skilled as Wayne Conwell running the show, it's an adventure that will always leave you wanting more.

Best Taste of Tokyo

Oshima Ramen

Finding a McDonald's in downtown Tokyo is easy; finding a real ramen noodle house in the United States is much more challenging. So how lucky are we to have Oshima Ramen, a link in a chain of ramen noodle shops that is to Japan what Mickey D's is to this country? Very lucky. As a matter of fact, we're the luckiest people in the whole USA, because the Oshima Ramen in Tiffany Plaza is the only Oshima Ramen in America. Still, one is enough for us. If you're looking for a true taste of Tokyo -- pork bone, chicken and bonito stock, fresh noodles rolled daily, blonde soy shoyu and a coffee-dark and cloudy miso broth used to create everything from a simple Original Ramen to a veggie, to a tofu and bamboo-shoot ramen, to a seafood ramen, to a double-up super original Oshima Ramen with chaisu, boiled egg and corn -- then you're really in luck here.

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