Food & Drink

Before gourmet trucks and new-style taquerias started fancying up tacos, old-school food trucks were turning out inexpensive, authentic street tacos. Many of these loncheras are still displaying their street smarts, including the pair of trucks that comprise the La Villa Real enterprise. This truck, usually parked at West Alameda at Raritan, attracts a constant crowd of patrons, some of whom stop by twice a day for the gorditas, burritos, tortas and, in particular, the tacos. Fresh, hot tortillas are loaded with spicy carne asada, velvety cheek meat or spongey tripe, sprinkled with cilantro and onions, then served with several salsas on the side. They’re simple, delicious — and really from the street.

Readers’ Choice: Pinche Tacos

The building that houses Tamales Moreno is so small that there’s no indoor seating; instead, every square inch of available surface area is covered with Ziploc bags full of tamales. Eager diners come in and grab their order — and many make it no farther than the picnic tables outside before they eagerly unwrap a tamale. Inside each corn husk is silky white masa so smooth that it tastes as if the corn has been mixed with lard; the sweet masa surrounds hunks of succulent red pork and bits of earthy green chiles that soon send racy heat running up the back of the palate. You can also order your tamales smothered in a river of green chile that has the color and consistency of split-pea soup, a sour tang and a pleasant, prickly heat. If you’re a glutton for punishment, the kitchen will gladly make that chile hot enough to melt your intestines.

If you were born and raised in Denver, you are, by rights, a green-chile geek. And if you popped out elsewhere (New Mexico notwithstanding) and simply don’t get why we’re so besotted with suffocating our burritos, enchiladas, rellenos and french fries with verde, we can only assume you have yet to try the green stuff at Tia Maria. The affable owner treats his customers like royalty, which is reason enough to plop your butt down in a cushy booth and spend the afternoon slumped over shots, which he doles out in frequent doses. The tequila syllabus is impressive — and so are the tasting notes that accompany it — and the shots pair perfectly with the restaurant’s green chile. It’s a stinging, savory swamp of garlic, tomatoes, cubed pork and ambrosial chiles that weep with heat. This verde puddles plates heaped with all the usual suspects, and it also swathes a rotund, pink-fleshed ham hock that may be the best dish on the menu.

Readers’ Choice: Santiago’s

The walls of Westerkamps feature an excellent collection of kitsch: Besides proclamations of love for the Lord, there are photos of ’50s Western stars, tools that might have been used on the prairie, old skis hung in an X shape, and hubcaps from classic American cars. The place is part Norman Rockwell museum, part small-town butcher store and part shrine to Jesus. And it also happens to make an insanely good green chile. The sauce itself is thin, but it’s filled with chunks of tomato, pork and jalapeño that give it heft as well as a tangy earthiness — plus an all-encompassing, slow-burning heat that spreads across the palate subtly until every part of your mouth, including your lips, gums and even teeth, tingles. It works beautifully with the steak-and-potatoes fare that are the less surprising offerings at Westerkamps.

Rise and shine! Araujo’s, a colorful storefront spot in the Federal Boulevard breakfast-burrito triangle that also includes a Santiago’s and Jack-n-Grill, opens at 6 a.m. weekdays (7 a.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. Sunday) and starts handing out the city’s best cheap breakfast just minutes later. Every day of the week, Araujo’s offers a special breakfast burrito from opening until 11 a.m. for just $1.50, the tortilla packed with scrambled eggs, cubes of potato, bits of green chiles and the chef’s choice of meat (bacon one day, sausage the next), with cheese and green chile filling all the cracks. It’s a hefty package that you can enjoy in the restaurant or take to go, and if you need help waking up, be sure to order that green chile hot.

Readers’ Choice: Santiago’s

When she bought the old Chubby Burger Drive-In on West 38th Avenue back in the late ’60s, Stella Cordova fueled it with her original chile recipe. Today the thick, porky stew is a Denver icon, spicy enough that the only real way to put the fire out is to keep eating it. While many restaurants in town — run by Cordova’s descendants — claim to make her chile, none of them are quite the same as the real thing. So on nights when you’ve been out drinking, it’s worth forking over plenty of cash to a cabbie to make a stop at this takeout-only, flier-plastered establishment. The foil-wrapped green-chile-stuffed grilled cheese may be the best drunken munchie food we’ve ever found, but the chile is just as good coating a burrito or smothering a pile of fries. And Chubby’s is also open until 3 a.m. on weekends — so it’ll be ready and waiting for you no matter what time the party ends.

In its various incarnations, Sam’s has been serving up classic diner fare for close to nine decades. The current Sam’s No. 3 was featured in a recent episode of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives devoted to a “Porktastic” theme, so you know that its pig (and ubiquitous pork green chile) is up to scratch. But vegetarians have their own reason to seek out Sam’s: The thick, spicy vegetarian version of the green can be added to any number of dishes on Sam’s extensive menu, smothering huevos rancheros and breakfast burritos or ordered as a side, cup, bowl, pint, quart or even gallon to take home. The hearty flavor and texture is enough to make even the most reluctant vegetable-eater sit up and say “Arriba!”

Readers’ Choice: Illegal Pete’s

This New Mexico-based chain, which has four locations in the metro area, doesn’t serve fast food — as evidenced by its lengthy menu of made-to-order burritos and enchiladas, all of which come draped with either green or red chile. The red chile is a revelation: bright, pungent, sassy and even a little fruity. Made with New Mexican chile powder, chile pequin and garlic, it’s the hue of sun-baked rust and, unlike the green chile, which is prepared with chicken stock, is truly vegetarian. But we won’t hold that against Twisters.

Readers’ Choice: Little Anita’s

College Inn is a down-home sports bar that attracts regulars who want to watch a game and drink beer from the tap lines, but it could also educate the rest of this town’s kitchens on how to make a perfect platter of nachos. Melted Jack and cheddar coat a bed of chips covered with fresh jalapeños, diced tomatoes and tender barbecued pork. The whole mess is smothered with a racy pork green chile, which plays nicely off the sweet-savory-tart flavors of the rest of the components, and then topped with guacamole and sour cream. The chip-to-stuff ratio guarantees that each bite is loaded with the goods, right down to the last tortilla triangle. These are macho nachos.

Readers’ Choice: Vine Street Pub

Sit down at Tacos Jalisco — an old, awkwardly partitioned joint at the edge of the Berkeley neighborhood — and your meal will start with free chips, straight from the fryer, and not just one delicious salsa, but a quartet of sips. One version pairs tomato with jalapeño and onion; another matches sweet mango to habanero heat; a third features tangy tomatillos; the fourth highlights creamy avocado with a fresh bite of cilantro. They all play so well off each other, it won’t be long until you’ve scraped your way to the bottom of each bowl. And that’s fine, because your server will keep offering free refills of both chips and salsas. Just remember to save some room for the rest of your meal.

Readers’ Choice: Benny’s

“Burn, baby, burn” should be the slogan of Carnitas Estilo Michoacán,a superior taqueria whose savage salsas would knock Mike Tyson out of the boxing ring…after just one round. There are ten in all, in varying hues of green, orange, red and firecracker, residing in side-by-side metal buckets. There’s a creamy avocado, jalapeño and tomatillo version; another with honey, fresh orange juice and bracing chile de arbol, as well as a hell-hot salsa with mixed chiles that hits more high notes than most mariachi bands. The salsa bar is stocked with plenty of other street-taco requisites, too, including sliced radishes, cucumbers, cilantro, lime wedges and pickled onions, carrots and jalapeños. And while there’s no alcohol to dull the pain (a liquor license is pending), the housemade aguas frescas are terrific.

Readers’ Choice: Tacos y Salsas

Lovers of vegetarian barbecue, prepare to meet your maker. Moe’s Bar-B-Que, a homegrown chain that got its start in the Vail Valley, prepares a heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth smoked tofu. You can order it as a plate, or smothered with coleslaw and slathered in barbecue sauce as a sandwich; you can also nix the slaw for a vegan version. To balance out your meal, Moe’s has mac and cheese, potato salad and fresh green salads. And if you’re eating at the Englewood address, you can also bowl a lane. ‘Cue the applause!

Jennifer and Lawrence Barkers, the owners of Country Time BBQ, aren’t proponents of any one of the country’s particular barbecue regions. Instead, they’re true to just one style: their own. After Lawrence perfected his smoking technique — using two secret kinds of wood — he started a mobile business that grew into a restaurant. Or sort of a restaurant. The shack off Hampden Avenue that houses their operation doesn’t have a seating area, so you’ll have to take your meal to go. But the hot links, brisket, ribs and half chickens that come off the pit are so infused with throat-stinging smoke and so velvety on the tongue, it’s hard to resist tearing into the meat as soon as you get to your car. The peach cobbler, too, is not to be missed.

Readers’ Choice: Moe’s Original BBQ

Mexican cuisine is awash in moles, and in Oaxaca, one of the best food cities in the world, there’s a different mole for every day of the week. But in this country — save for in Los Angeles, where there are dozens of Oaxacan restaurants — mole, at least proper mole, is difficult to find. Lucky for us, we have Tarasco’s, a Mexican/Latin restaurant that feeds our mole obsession with two different versions, including a remarkable mole verde. It’s greener than money, greener than an enchanted forest, greener than Kermit the Frog. Made with poblano and jalapeño peppers, peanuts, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds, crushed almonds and cloves, this mole is a riot of texture and spice and comes generously draped over long-simmered, crisp, caramelized shards of pork.

El Trompito Taqueria is a smashing wonderland of Mexican street food dominated by the thud of cleavers in the open kitchen, where workers assemble tacos, huaraches, alambres, skyscraping tortas and aguas frescas made with fresh fruit. But the taqueria’s essential dish is the mixiote de borrego, an overnight-braised lamb shank. The shards and slivers of meat, at once crunchy and soft, are heavy with a pungent, in-your-throat musk; they’re swathed in a chile-slapped adobo sauce studded with prickly-pear cactus leaves. The lamb arrives with a heap of corn tortillas, Mexican rice and refritos dotted with crumbles of queso fresco; you can accessorize your meal from the salsa bar that squats in the middle of the festive, lively dining room.

Seven days a week, this campy chuckwagon pit stop and drive-thru crowned with a cherry-red roof turns out hefty gut grenades to satiate your morning lust or lingering hangover. Two bucks and tax rewards the hunger pangs (or thumping headache) with a hefty potato, egg and chile-blasted burrito, while the daily specials, all of which include cheese, sausage, shredded beef, bacon, ham or chorizo, ring in at a mere $3. They’re large enough to get you through to lunch, and no one gives a damn if you dribble grease down your chin while sharing a picnic table with other like-minded gluttons.

Readers’ Choice: Santiago’s

Though sports bars the world over serve up chicken wings, it’s surprisingly difficult to find good ones: If they’re not limp and soggy after being tossed in the fryer straight out of the freezer bag, they’re smothered in some creative sauce that’s no improvement on the original. But at Vine Street Pub, the chicken wings really soar. Large and meaty, the bone-in bits of bird are fried until the skin is crispy and the flesh juicy, then served piping hot, six to an order. Though you can opt for a sweet, sticky barbecue sauce, our favorite slather is the traditional, lip-stinging red hot, well-paired with a cooling side of ranch or chunky blue cheese dressing.

Readers’ Choice: Quaker Steak and Lube

Three years ago, Buenos Aires native Lorena Cantarovici decided to open a catering business using her mother’s recipes for empanadas and other Argentine specialties. The business went so well that by last fall, she needed a bigger kitchen. She found it in a strip-mall storefront that looks oddly like a log cabin. Inside, she has just enough room for two tables and a counter, where she keeps a glass case stocked with a dozen or so different types of empanadas plus dulce de leche-based desserts, tartas (savory pies) and eggy Spanish tortillas. But that’s all she needs to keep diners happy. Cantarovici’s empanadas are the real deal. The flaky crusts — shiny from a finishing brush of oil or butter and crispy on the edges — give way to a mouthful of fillings that range from corn to ham and stretchy mozzarella or braised beef with just a little kiss of heat. These empanadas offer the true taste of Argentina — and it’s delicious.

Readers’ Choice: Cafe Brazil

Ensuring that you get your grubby little hands on a fat helping of super-crisp, super-delicious, super-hot fried chicken at Tom’s Home Cookin’ requires planning: You need to arrive before it’s all gone, which can sometimes occur long before you’re even considering lunch, and you’ll need to carry a stash of cash, because the joint doesn’t accept credit. But the planning always pays off. The wings and things, lightly dusted with flour before their plunge in a deep-fry bath, are the color of copper when they emerge, and owners Steve Jankousky and Tom Unterwagner live by the law of simplicity, which means there’s no futzing with the skin, save for a liberal one-two punch of salt and pepper.

Readers’ Choice: Steuben’s

Dessert king Keegan Gerhard is renowned for his sensational sugar sensations, but his savory creations are just as inspiring — starting with the crue fries, an irresponsible mound of Parmesan-dusted thin potato strips buried under a rich cheese sauce that in and of itself has the ability to take over its victims’ veins like a heroin injection. But Gerhard doesn’t stop there: He covers the heap with melted Jack and cheddar, crumbles of smoky bacon, snips of chives and zigzags of housemade ranch dressing. You’ll push the plate away more than once in an effort to pretend that you couldn’t possibly eat one more bite — and the second a staffer swoops in to take it away, you’ll snatch it back and slap her hand for daring to try.

There are several strict rules of thumb when it comes to making french fries: First, the tubers — blanched, of course — must be hand-cut, with the skins left on for texture. Second, the potatoes shouldn’t be cut too thin or, God forbid, too thick. Third, if the resulting fries aren’t crisp, golden and hotter than a sidewalk sale in the heart of a Palm Springs summer, then the kitchen deserves a cold night in hell. And finally, they had better be liberally dusted with salt. The fries at the original Elway’s, which arrive heaped into a large cone, adhere to every one of these rules. They’re simultaneously fluffy and crisp, properly salted (and peppered, too), and they taste the way french fries should. And they don’t require any damn condiments, most notably that horrible thing known as ketchup.

Readers’ Choice: Jonesy’s EatBar

We’ve seen plenty of ham, pork and Swiss cheese sandwiches posing as Cubans, but the real deal is a rarity in this town. At Buchi Cafe Cubano, a sweet spot in Highland, though, the Cuban sandwich is absolutely authentic, right down to the Cuban bread: a slightly sweet, crusty white loaf similar to — but not the same as — French bread. Buchi stacks this bread with slices of ham, succulent roast pork, layers of Swiss and pickles, then grills it in the panini press until the cheese is gooey. A smear of hot mustard adds the classic final touch before this sublime sandwich is simply wrapped in a sheet of butcher paper and delivered to your eager hands.

While we don’t subscribe to the belief that the only good hot dog is a Chicago dog, we will acknowledge that the Windy City makes one hell of a frank. And here in Denver, you’ll find a reverent homage to the Chicago dog at the two Mile High Vienna stores, where Sonny Jarock and Jeremy Williamson have created shrines to Denver and Chicago sports. The menu shares a similar division, with green chile and tamales alongside Italian beef and a Chicago dog done exactly right: with a springy Vienna beef dog piled with sliced tomatoes, onions, neon green relish, spicy sport peppers, a pickle spear, mustard and celery salt (of course) on a steamed poppyseed bun.

No matter how cold it is outside, the atmosphere inside Frijoles Colorado Cuban Cafe is downright beachy. This family-run spot that opened last year in a Lakewood strip mall moves to its own island rhythm. Roxana and Sergio Negrin man the counter and do the cooking, and they turn out excellent ropa vieja, lechón, Cuban sandwiches and Cuban empanadas, plus an array of specials — including guava-sauced ribs — that offer a taste of both Cuba and Florida, the places they once called home. Finish your meal with a slice of flan and a cafecito — a superb shot of sweet espresso — and you may want to express your joy by shouting “Que rico!” over the din.

From the beautifully baked breads that scent the dining room to the textbook-perfect gnocchi with rabbit confit to the twitchy egg that crowns the tagliatelle carbonara specked with house-cured pancetta, Panzano’s kitchen just keeps out turning stunning fare. For that, you can thank chef Elise Wiggins, who interprets the cuisine of northern Italy with ingredients from Colorado farms and ranches — everything from impeccable Hazel Dell mushrooms to organic, locally raised chicken, lamb and beef. But Wiggins also knows how to command a kitchen, and her seasonal, contemporary dishes, which pair to a superb wine program, are the result of a tight-knit crew exuding the same commitment and passion as their queen.

Readers’ Choice: Luca d’Italia

The first thing you’ll notice as you browse the menu at Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs is that Steve is not a traditionalist. You won’t find a proper Chicago dog here, for instance, nor will you find a Coney Island dog. Rather, Steve’s reinvents the idea of what a hot dog can be, serving up Thumann’s franks in creative ways — including tucked into a burrito, deep-fried, smothered in green chile and topped with bacon. If you can get past your poppyseed-bun snobbery, you’ll find that all of the dogs at this East Colfax spot are delicious, especially when paired with sweet-potato tots and a fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Readers’ Choice: Biker Jim’s

A few months ago, Brian Laird, the former executive chef of Barolo Grill, was flipping burgers at Rockbar. But he soon moved on to Sketch, where he’s returned to his Italian cooking roots, turning out bowls of majestic housemade pastas, including pasta puttanesca — which, if you didn’t already know, was allegedly invented by prostitutes, who relied on the sauce’s come-hither perfume to lure customers. But when you order Laird’s puttanesca, you’re getting a lot more than that: His textured, chunky sauce, flecked with red-chile flakes, tangled with capers and olives and scented with garlic and a whisper of anchovies, is better than most sex. And so is the rest of the fare he turns out at Sketch. This isn’t your standard neighborhood Italian joint; it’s much, much better.

Readers’ Choice: Carmine’s on Penn

You know the eggs Benedict that litter the breakfast menus of just about every cafe and diner in Denver? These are not those eggs Benedict, with hollandaise from a pre-mixed pouch. No, at DJ’s Berkeley Cafe, eggs Benedict are held in higher esteem than your overall happiness; they’re more sacred than marriage, more royal than Kate and Wills. Our favorite is the New Mexican Benedict, a bluff of fragile poached eggs and fire-roasted poblano chiles straddling two intensely spiced chorizo sausages resting on a smear of cheddar polenta. This is a magnificent dish that tastes of early-morning sunshine — and the scratch-made hollandaise, singing with lemon, is good enough to drink.

Park Burger makes the best veggie burger in the city, hands down. A grain-based patty is bound together with egg and then smashed on the grill until it’s perfectly browned; the chef then adds lettuce, tomato, onion, a special sauce and whatever else you might want, including a fried egg, mushrooms or onions. The regular fries make a perfect traditional side, or you can mix things up with the sweet-potato variety. Whether you want to wash your meal down with a cold draft beer or a Moscow Mule, arm yourself with plenty of napkins — because it’s going to be a falling-apart, messy, delicious ride until the savory end. Even without moo juice.

Readers’ Choice: Park Burger

City, O’ City got a new chef and a new interior this past year, but it wisely kept the burger known as the Maximus, a hearty quinoa-and-pinto-bean patty grilled and served up on a Kaiser with special sauce and cheddar. But not content with leaving well enough alone, Brendon Doyle devised an El Jefe option, which adds sautéed mushrooms, onion rings, hot-sauce aioli and a fried egg. Vegans can switch the cheddar out with non-dairy cheese and get rid of the egg; the result is still a righteous burger that satisfies any late-night (or midday, or dinnertime) craving.

If you want a perfectly pleasant conversation to turn contentious, just mention the word “pizza” and watch the dough fly. Or you can just shut your piehole and plop yourself down at Virgilio’s, where the New York-style pizzas are generally known to silence even the most severe skeptics. The pizzas — sturdy, slightly raised, requisitely chewy and uniformly tinged golden — are staunchly traditional (seekers of Brussels sprouts or ornamental orange blossoms should fuhgeddaboutit), and the lightly herbed sauce, a judicious balance of acidity and sweetness, paves the way for classic toppings like sausage and pepperoni, onions and olives. With so many frou-frou pizzas littering menus these days, the pies at Virgilio’s are a welcome journey down memory lane.

Denver’s seen a boom in burger joints over the past few years, with some stripping the burger down to basics and others loading it up so that it’s no longer recognizable. Highland Tap & Burger falls squarely in the middle, rethinking this iconic American dish while also celebrating what makes it remarkable. The chimi burger tops a fat medium-rare patty with white cheddar and garlicky chimichurri. The Shroomluva’s comes on a bun smeared with truffle aioli, along with a pile of sautéed mushrooms and a slab of Emmentaler cheese. Our favorite, though, is the Tap burger, accessorized with a layer of root beer-marinated pulled pork in smoky, caramelly sauce, a crispy onion ring and both cheddar and American cheeses. If this is the next step in the evolution of the burger, we’re there.

Juicy Burger & Dogs, a buzzy joint in the ‘burbs, makes the best burger around — and it’s easy to see why. That’s because the burger isn’t all gussied up with elaborate toppings or brioche bread. Instead, a hand-molded, properly salt-and-peppered patty — made of freshly ground beef, lamb or chicken — is char-grilled until it gushes fatty juices and oozes the scent of an outdoor barbecue, then slipped onto griddled pumpernickel or a white bun baked by Udi’s, blanketed with a thick slice of melted Tillamook cheese or smeared with spreadable cheddar. You don’t need anything more for a great burger, but the standard condiments — tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, grilled and raw onions, ketchup and mustard — are available as free add-ons. And while you have to pay for them, the fries are perfection, too.

Readers’ Choice: Cherry Cricket

Osteria Marco is not a pizzeria. It’s a shrine to handcrafted cheeses and salumi, to suckling pig on Sunday nights and panini paved with prosciutto. It also happens to be a restaurant whose repertoire includes some of the most superb pizzas to ever cross our lips. A few bites in and you’re transfixed by the salty, airy chew of the crust and the inspired combinations of toppings: pancetta, Pecorino and a yolk-flowing egg that seeps across the center; goat cheese, Fontina, fig purée and crisp nubbins of prosciutto that shatter like glass; and our favorite, a pizza with housemade sausage, caramelized onions, Fontina and thin rings of racy red Fresno chiles.

Readers’ Choice: Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizzeria

While most people who head to the newly expanded Hops & Pie are looking for craft beer and pizza, we’d hop over to this friendly spot for the mac and cheese alone. An order brings a mound of elbow macaroni glazed in a sharp cheddar sauce mixed with pudgy peas and strands of smoky braised ham hock, then spackled with breadcrumbs. But lifting this dish above all others is the deep bite introduced by adding India pale ale to the pot: It lightens the heaviness of the cream and leaves a seductive tartness lingering on the tongue. The mac and cheese is served in a ceramic bowl delivered on a Sicilian pie pan to catch stragglers — good idea, since you don’t want to let a single bite escape.

Readers’ Choice: Steuben’s

The biggest difference between these breakfast burritos and all the others has everything to do with ratio: Priced at a bargain-basement $1.95 each, the pudgy, foil-wrapped marvels are stuffed with equal amounts of soft-scrambled eggs, melty cheese, crisp-edged potatoes, salty meat — bacon, sausage or chorizo — and searing green chile, which means that whether you’re on your first bite or your last, you’ll get a combustion of flavors with every chew. It’s a terrific breakfast burrito, superseded only by the irresistible salsas, which pack a rigorous amount of heat.

Readers’ Choice: Santiago’s

Come spring and summer, the back patio of Quixote’s True Blue fills with the odors of hippie food on the stove, a few cigs and stogies, and often the sweet, skunky smell of other burning materials — not that anyone is condoning anything here. Snag a seat at the picnic table, where you can enjoy a post-Rockies beer or boogie your butt off in front of the outdoor stage featuring a Grateful Dead bluegrass cover band. Either way, we guarantee you’ll get high…on life.

Justin Cucci’s redesign of the old Olinger Mortuary is stunning, and the view of the skyline from inside Linger is lovely, too. But from high on the rooftop deck, tucked just below the old Olinger sign, the sight of the city stretching out before you is positively breathtaking. And while you point out features of the Platte Valley and downtown Denver beyond — even Pikes Peak on clear days — you can sip cocktails poured specially for this part of the restaurant. Even the patio itself is a pretty picture: At night, it twinkles under strands of Christmas lights and takes on an air of intimacy — no matter that it’s usually packed to capacity. And soon, Linger will have a kitchen up there, too.

Readers’ Choice: Linger

“There’s no other style of pizza in the world that’s as geeky as the Napolitano style,” chef Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson proclaimed when he opened Pizzeria Locale. “And we’re trying to do it exactly right.” Doing it right included MacKinnon-Patterson and partner Bobby Stuckey bringing oven-makers from Italy to build a custom wood-burning stove in their new space near the flagship Frasca. The hard work paid off, though: Pizzeria Locale turns out mind-blowing pies that begin with a rich and chewy crust, thin and soft in the center and fluffier around the edges. The menu offers about fifteen different combos, from a traditional Margherita — with sweet and savory milled San Marzano tomatoes, stretchy and decadent mozzarella di bufala and a few leaves of fresh basil — to the Mais, a combination of sweet corn, silky slices of prosciutto cotto, tart crème fraîche and more mozzarella. And, as in Naples, these pizzas don’t come sliced — so be prepared to eat yours with a knife and fork.

Readers’ Choice: Sexy Pizza

How does your garden grow? Just ask Olav Peterson, the exec chef/owner of Bittersweet, who skillfully designed his fetching urban patio to ensure that his menu stays seasonal and fresh through much of the year. Strewn with shrubbery and shady trees that shimmer in the sun- and moonlight, as well as edible flowers, dozens of herbs and an abundance of vegetables, including squash and zucchini, numerous varieties of heirloom tomato plants, Swiss chard and collard greens, this is a gorgeous garden patio that makes eating in the great outdoors even greater.

Readers’ Choice: Linger

Hot dog carts continue to monopolize Denver’s food-cart movement, but for a doggone good wiener that sizzles and drizzles with juices, Biker Jim’s is the alpha Great Dane. The original cart, usually parked on the corner of 16th and Arapahoe streets, has been hustling franks from Continental Sausage for years. And clearly, practice makes perfect — because every day the stainless-steel mobile has junkies lined up to sink their incisors into a salty, meaty elk sausage or reindeer dog bulked up with onions caramelized in Coca-Cola and a surge of cream cheese ejected from a caulking gun. No wonder it’s our favorite sidewalk snack.

Readers’ Choice: Biker Jim’s

Jimmy Sannino, owner of Mama Sanninos, has decades of experience behind him; he jokes that he’s been in the restaurant business since he was six years old. His family once owned the iconic Three Sons, and he’s imported many of the recipes from that longtime north Denver spot to an Arvada strip-mall space that specializes in homestyle cooking and old-school red-sauce dishes. If you’re craving that type of food, just about any dish on the menu will do, but Mama Sanninos makes a sublime spaghetti and meatballs. Pencil-thick homemade egg noodles come covered with a thick, spicy-tangy red sauce spiked with garlic and just a smattering of red chiles for extra kick, then topped with a couple of hefty meatballs, the beef pungent with garlic, basil and oregano.

Talk about a movable feast! Manna from Heaven lives up to its name, turning out celestial Vietnamese street chow, including an amazing banh mi that’s built with pork, cilantro and fresh vegetables, quality ingredients all heaped on a first-rate baguette streaked with a spicy sauce of sriracha and mayonnaise. But the congenial crew — it’s a family affair — stakes its reputation on more than just this dish: You’ll find other traditional pleasures such as fresh spring rolls, Vietnamese noodle soups and fruit smoothies best sucked up with an oversized straw.

Readers’ Choice: Steuben’s

WaterCourse Foods just keeps getting better. The atmosphere has always been lovely: The open, airy space features animals and landscapes painted across the walls by Ravi Zupa, with tall stools lining the bar and comfortable booths tucked by the walls. But over the past year, WaterCourse cut out its weekday breakfast hours, allowing chef Rachel Kesley to concentrate on the meals where the kitchen really shines: lunch and dinner. In addition to a solid spread of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and other entrees, there are daily specials, including creative soups and rotating cheese boards, and the dessert tray is massive and decadent. Add to those elements a solid wine and beer list, and you’ve got a vegetarian restaurant that caters to any palate, every day of the week. But Kesley’s penchant for rolling out multi-course spreads tied to Valentine’s Day, Denver Beer Week and other blowout occasions makes this a great special-occasion spot, too.

Readers’ Choice: WaterCourse

Crimson Canary channels the Hollywood version of Italian steakhouses that were popular in the 1970s, and several items on the menu are to die for. In particular, this spot makes killer calamari. The kitchen mixes lemon slices and spicy housemade giardiniera — the blend of pickled peppers and vegetables most often found on deli sandwiches — with the springy bodies and tentacles of the squid before covering them with a delicate batter, frying the whole mess and then dusting the finished product with sweet basil, lemon and plenty of salt. Sided with a basic basil pesto that further enhances the play of tart, spicy peppers against the supple squid and that feathery batter, the dish is stunning — and just might be the best fried calamari we’ve ever tasted.

Although many cuisine types are easily adapted to a vegan lifestyle, the cheeses and meats so prevalent in Italian cooking make it more difficult to find vegan versions of certain Italian staples, especially pizza. But not at Virgilio’s. Many of the specialty pies at this very popular place (be prepared to wait for a table) lend themselves to vegan interpretations, or you can build your own pizza with a tomato- or olive oil-based sauce, dairy-free cheese, and all the usual veggie toppings plus a few unusual options, including green olives and fresh spinach. Do yourself a favor and order an extra pie — because when you can find vegan pizza this delicious, you’ll definitely want leftovers.

Readers’ Choice: Jonesy’s EatBar

A one-mile strip of Havana offers a quick tour of Korean food, but Han Kang should be your ultimate destination. Although almost everything on the menu is good and comes with an impressive number of sides to mix and match until you create a perfectly balanced meal, the barbecue is the real draw. Request a table on the tented platform, where your party can gather around a sizzling grill and cook your chosen chunks of meat — marinated with kick of ginger, a hit of garlic, the ambrosial characteristic of honey and the satisfying saltiness of soy sauce. Sometimes working for your dinner pays off.

Readers’ Choice: Seoul BBQ

The book-like menu at New Saigon is dizzying, an ocean of letters and numerals with a whole bay of vegetarian options. But we always land on 10N, Bun Tau Hu Xao Sa Ot, located under the noodle bowl section and highlighted in red. Described simply as “stir-fried tofu with lemon grass noodle bowl,” this peanut-topped dish is a tangle of thin rice noodles, carrots, mushrooms, snow peas and thin strips of crispy, savory tofu. While New Saigon’s fried rice and cari chay curry are also good vegetarian options, 10N could be the best vegetarian dish in the city (leave the special sauce on the side; it’s made with fish) — and definitely the best vegetarian dish you’ll find in a non-vegetarian restaurant.

Readers’ Choice: Arada Restaurant

The food-truck revolution in this city was kind to vegetarians and vegans, with almost every vehicle offering at least a couple of options for non-carnivores. Quiero Arepas drives down both sides of the street, catering to both meat-eaters and plant-eaters with a roster of arepas — corn-based, flatbread-style wraps — with filling choices that include beef and smoked salmon as well as eggs, roasted red-pepper hummus and creamy slices of avocado. The vegan arepa really gets our motor running, with a thick dollop of black beans, avocado slices and plantains tucked in the crispy corn blanket.

When Utumporn Killoran, who runs the Thai Street Food cart on the 16th Street Mall, opened a same-name brick-and-mortar last year in Aurora, it quickly earned a spot on everyone’s you-must-go-here list. From her tiny exhibition kitchen, which she runs with her husband and son, Killoran turns out deeply flavored curries and soups, all of which boast bold spices. There’s nothing on her tidy menu that we don’t love, but we’re particular fans of her noodle jelly salad, which doesn’t contain jelly at all. Instead, a slippery mound of glossy glass noodles is tangled with ground pork, shrimp, pungent herbs and lashings of fiery red chiles, the heat of which makes your stomach quake like a coin-operated waterbed. The dish is at once salty and sweet, tart and spicy — and incredible. But you can only get it on Saturdays, which is the only day that the Thai Street Food restaurant is open.

Readers’ Choice: Thai Basil

Amie Arias took to the streets with the Vegan Van last November, bringing an international menu to different points about Denver. She changes her lineup regularly, so whether her van is pulling up to Great Divide or idling at a corner for lunch, there’s always something interesting to try; the rotating winter selections have included a notable take on a Caesar salad, a buffalo-tofu sandwich and beer-battered nori “fish,” as well as dessert specials and flavor-infused waters. Wherever the Vegan Van cruises, plant-based eaters are certain to follow.

Joints that operate 24/7 are as American as apple pie and chocolate pudding, but they’re also a dying breed, especially in this city, where 10 p.m. — sometimes 9 — is the time du jour for turning off the lights. But not at this fluorescent-lit diner, whose parade of characters is most abundant when the bars go dim. Here you can banter with sassy (but tolerant) gum-smacking waitresses wearing Day-Glo-orange aprons, presumably to keep you awake — or to stop you from doing a face plant in one of the bright-orange vinyl booths. Endearing idiosyncrasies aside, the food, which includes everything from chicken-fried steak and burgers to breakfast burritos to elk sausage (at a diner!), is exactly what your stomach yearns for when you want to feast like a king.

Readers’ Choice: Pete’s Kitchen

It’s not exactly convenient to jump on a plane every time you get a hankering for Panang curry, so we’ve spent some serious hours searching out a local replacement. Enter Thai Flavor, where you can get a brimming bowl of Panang curry, creamy and caramel-colored, pungent and peppery, swimming with tender strips of pork, scallions and basil, and laced with a chile-infused heat that’s checked — somewhat — by the natural sugar of coconut milk, the savory bite of garlic and the tangy nip of a freshly squeezed lime. With a side of sticky rice, it’s almost as good — almost — as a curry you’d find on the banks of the Mekong in the north of Thailand.

Saigon Bowl has held down its spot in the Far East Center for more than fifteen years, but it would probably take a lifetime to eat your way through its extensive menu. The kitchen cooks up a vast array of bun and worthy, consistent pho, but it also turns out stir-fried frog’s legs, jellyfish salad, lobster tail, a variety of traditional fish preparations — including one stewed for hours in a clay pot — and a particularly excellent seafood soup, served in a flame-shooting pot. The specialty, though, is the restaurant’s appetizer combo, a platter piled high with soft-shelled crab, egg rolls, grilled pork and shrimp paste served with a stack of rice papers and a mélange of produce so you can create your own rolls.

Readers’ Choice: New Saigon

If you’ve ever cooked with store-bought seitan, you know how slimy and downright unappetizing the stuff can be. And while making your own seitan is a relatively easy process, it’s tedious and time-consuming. But now Denver Seitan Company has packaged the convenience of store-bought seitan with the taste of the homemade stuff — and the result will have even your carnivore friends drooling. Cooked up weekly in Chickenesque, SmokySpicy, Sicilian and Sureizo varieties, this seitan is delivered to two designated pickup locations in Wash Park and Capitol Hill — and you get discounts if you purchase a membership. When it comes to wheat meat, there’s nothing like DSC seitan.

It’s no secret that some of the best cooking in town happens on Federal Boulevard, Denver’s melting pot of noodles and pho, street tacos and salsas, dim sum and durian. If you aren’t willing to duck into a seedy taqueria that’s roosting next to a foot massage parlor, or a restaurant adjacent to a liquor store that reeks of stale cigarettes, then you’re going to miss out on on some special dishes — including the seafood hot pot at DaLat. This Vietnamese spot has a behemoth menu — make that menus — that can make ordering a challenge, if only because there are so many dishes that beg for your attention. Still, while the pages go on…and on…and on, it’s rare that we make it past the hot pot, a seething ocean of broth bubbling with crushed chiles, perfectly cooked seafood, crisp vegetables and astringent Vietnamese basil, one of the most herbaceous scents in the universe.

This Boulder-based outfit makes celestial ice cream, churning cream and sugar into sweet, silky confections, some of them studded with tiny bits of cake or candy. You can find more popular flavors packaged up at several retail shops around town — or offered on many restaurant dessert lists — but it’s worth heading straight to the source. The Glacier Homemade Ice Cream shop scoops a variety of frequently rotated creations into cups or cones; our favorites include the caramel Oreo, spicy chai, Junior Mint and dulce de leche. Glacier also partners with other purveyors — including local brewers, cake-makers and restaurants — to turn out special seasonal one-offs. The frequent collaborations with Kim & Jake’s Cakes, a Boulder bakery, are particularly dreamy.

When we’ve maxed out our meat quota, the kitchen at City, O’ City, one of Denver’s few vegetarian restaurants, does a body good, especially at breakfast time. We’re bewitched by the joint’s savory waffle, a gluten-free marvel made with potato starch and tapioca flour, that’s pelted with zucchini, flax seeds and carrots. Ringed with a creamy garlic-and-shallot-scented Taleggio sauce that’s richer than Oprah, and topped with a crop of roasted root vegetables — and an egg if you want it — this is the waffle to beat.

The Denver area has dozens and dozens of pho shops, most of which serve up decent bowls of noodle soup. But only a few really stand out, and the one that rises to the top is Pho Duy. The menu is as spare as the decor at this strip-mall spot; save for a few specialties and spring rolls, there’s not much offered beyond pho. But the kitchen doesn’t need to make anything else to pull in crowds. Its intensely layered broth, which tastes like it comes from a very well-seasoned pot, supports nests of springy noodles, thin slices of beef, brisket or offal, and all the fresh herbs you can stand. Ribbon it with sriracha or ask for a little of the restaurant’s homemade hot sauce for a punch of heat.

The raw material is locally sourced, with milk from grass-fed cows at the historic Morning Fresh Dairy Farm in Bellvue. The recipe (and the owners) come from a little burg in Queensland, Australia, called Noosa. The result is a creamy, full-bodied yogurt that’s neither as sour as the Greek version nor as insipidly sweet as the American — and so tasty that it’s hard to believe it’s good for you. Available at small and large grocers, in blueberry, mango, raspberry, honey, peach and strawberry rhubarb.

“I didn’t know what I wanted it to be, so this is what I ended up with,” owner Holly Smith says of her boutique/sandwicheria/teahouse. She’d always wanted to cook, but she also had a thing for France, for pretty things and for loose-leaf teas, so she combined all of her loves into Tres Jolie, a spot in downtown Littleton that looks like an even girlier Anthropologie, where she sells soap, cookbooks and throw pillows — and also serves lunch and tea. Like the trinkets for sale, the sandwiches are also very pretty: grilled cheese with tomato and arugula, goat cheese with roasted red peppers, turkey with white-truffle vinaigrette and tapenade. And a pretty pastry case is filled with delightful, freshly baked goods, including scones, tarts and cookies, which are also available for an afternoon tea.

The Denver Tech Center is full of green energy, thanks to Fourleaf Chopped Salads, a homegrown marvel. This subterranean spot is only open weekdays, and only at lunch — when it’s always packed. The menu features a dozen specialty salads, as well as some basic choices of greens, a couple dozen dressing options and a dizzying number of proteins and other possible additions: tofu, shrimp, turkey, salami, three kinds of chicken, apples, artichoke hearts, avocado, broccoli, chickpeas, corn, cranberries, eggs, jicama, olives, peas, pasta, sunflower seeds…and on and on. After you choose between iceberg, romaine, spinach or spring mix, you can add as few or as many toppings as you like; everything is then stashed in a bowl, and just before serving, a staffer dumps the mix on a cutting board and works it over with a giant, two-handled rocking knife that chops it all into bite-sized pieces. It’s fresh, it’s fast, and it’s amazingly good.

Readers’ Choice: Mad Greens

Pho 95 has been drawing pho-natics for years, especially those of the non-meat persuasion — because this strip-mall Vietnamese noodle shop serves up the best vegetarian pho in town, featuring tofu sliced into triangles and fried, then added to an incredibly flavorful vegetarian broth swimming with rice noodles, slices of carrot, broccoli, mushrooms, snow peas and thin strips of onion. The portions range from small (which is really rather large) to eye-poppingly massive (which still costs less than $10); all serving sizes include a plate heaped with Thai basil, dandelion leaves, spicy jalapeño slices, bean sprouts and lime wedges. You’ll be bowled over.

Hong Kong is famous for its siu mei, a blanket term that covers many roasted meats; siu mei shops in that city display whole, honey-glazed and five-spice-dusted, slow-cooked animals in their windows. Pigs and geese are the most popular critters, prized for the high fat content that makes the meat so moist as the fire melts the fat. Though siu mei is easy to find in cities with a vibrant Chinatown, it’s a rarer treat in Denver, where Chinese restaurants tend to offer a mishmash of specialties from all over the country. But at Hong Kong BBQ, you can order cuts of siu mei served over rice — or simply buy a whole roasted duck or pig to take home. You can also order from the regular menu, which is loaded with such familiar items as kung pao chicken and lemongrass beef, as well as fried rice, noodles, hot pots and even curries — and every dish we’ve tried has been exceptional.

Readers’ Choice: Wokano

You can get a sandwich just about anywhere, but if you want to wrap your muzzle around a monument, then you need to go to the master of sandwich-making. And that’s Masterpiece Deli, the spot that Justin Brunson opened several years ago in Lower Highland, before this part of town was a hot restaurant neighborhood. The come-to-Jesus white-truffled egg salad is the best in the city, but you can say the same for the Italian and the roasted vegetable, the pastrami special and the braised beef brisket on a baguette. This shop sticks to a simple formula: Use the best ingredients you can get your hands on (Brunson’s own bacon, for example). And the result is inevitably a masterpiece.

Readers’ Choice: Snarf’s

We may not be totally sober if we’re seeking out a meal after midnight, but we’re often coherent enough to know that we don’t want any old slice of pizza or a foil-wrapped burrito. That’s why we often find ourselves at My Brother’s Bar in the wee hours. This iconic Denver bar, which for the last forty years has occupied an address that has held a saloon since the 1880s, serves a massive menu of burgers, sandwiches, salads and all manner of fried accoutrements until just before 2 a.m. last call every day but Sunday. That makes it a good bet for a detour on your way home, and an excellent place to end the night, taking down one last pint and loading up on something griddled and greasy before you turn in to sleep off the tipsy.

Readers’ Choice: Pete’s Kitchen

There are many places in town that disprove the notion that you have to be on one of the coasts to enjoy good sushi — and Wayne Conwell’s stylish spot makes the most convincing argument of all. This restaurant between LoDo and LoHi doesn’t just serve raw fish, though; it features Conwell’s inventive take on the new-style Japanese cooking he learned under Iron Chef Morimoto. His dishes also show the influences of Italy and France, and his imaginative omakase menus regularly serve up some of the city’s best Japanese cuisine. Conwell is spot-on in his execution of everything from tenderloin to toro, and his restaurant raises the bar for sushi bars as well as international cuisines. But it also raises the bar for how high a restaurant tab can go. A dinner at Sushi Sasa is sure to impress associates with impeccable food, gracious service and a hefty check best picked up with the company Amex.

Readers’ Choice: Fruition

Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs has been hawking fat sausages from a handful of carts for years now, but last spring, Jim Pittenger also opened a brick-and-mortar establishment that’s quickly become a mainstay for those looking for a cheap dinner before a night on the town — or a cheap dinner at the end of a long night, since this spot stays open after last call on weekends. Most of the dogs — including such exotic sausages as boar, elk and veal — run just $6 or $7 and come piled high with caramelized onions and decorated with a ribbon of cream cheese. That still leaves you a couple of bucks for a side of deep-fried mac and cheese. Or go with the Usual, which nets you a topped dog, fries and a PBR for just $9.25.

Readers’ Choice: Chipotle

Chef Liu’s, a strip-mall joint deep in Aurora, has a “secret” menu, and it features specialties from all over China, including Beijing-style pork with bean paste, fried pork livers and dan dan noodles. But Chef Liu’s true specialties are the Szechuan dishes. Our favorites include mouth-numbing beef, twice-cooked pork, cumin-rubbed lamb and real Szechuan chicken. The best way to approach dinner here, though, might be to have your server order you a feast of interesting items, because that way you’re sure to score something delicious you would otherwise have missed.

Whether you’re on a budget or not, you can’t go wrong by making a lunch of the pupusas at Tacos Acapulco, a tiny shack way out on East Colfax. The griddled corn rounds, crispy around the edges and fat with juicy pork, cheese, beans or herbaceous liroco, come with slaw and salsa. Two are enough to make a meal, and will only set you back a total of $4. But if you have a little more cash, this half-Mexican/half-Salvadorean spot has a number of other cheap and delicious options — including awesome tacos al pastor carved right off the spit.

Readers’ Choice: Comfort Cafe

Even a recent expansion hasn’t thinned the impenetrable crowds that descend upon Super Star Asian. They huddle and mutter under their breath near the doorway, their eyes peering over the cavernous combat zone, where fast-moving carts dash between big, round tables covered with bamboo steamers of everything under the dim sum sun: terrific shu mai and congee, salt-and-pepper shrimp, barbecued pork buns and egg-custard tarts, chicken feet and Peking duck. And while you’ll bust your belt, beg for mercy and implore someone with a modicum of moderation to carry you out the door, you’ll be back…again and again.

Readers’ Choice: Star Kitchen

If you’re going to go out, you may as well go out with a hedonistic, gluttonous, cardiac-arrest-inducing bang, and the best place to find that in this city is Euclid Hall, a restaurant just off Larimer Square that’s devoted to suds and swine. Here you can stuff yourself on some of the richest foods the world has to offer: fat-laced sausages, platters of gravy-laden poutine, crispy pig’s ear pad Thai, fried cheese curds, brûléed bone marrow and maple-syrup-drizzled fried quail and waffles. You can polish your feast off with foie gras ordered by the ounce — and wash it down with some of the rarest beers around. Euclid Hall pays playful respect to decadence and indulgence, and it pulls dinner off flawlessly every single time — so if you have to die, you’ll die fat, drunk and happy.

Readers’ Choice: Linger

We fell in love at first slurp with Bones, Frank Bonanno’s homage to the noodle bar. The menu is small and well-edited, with French technique influencing a list of mostly Japanese specialties, which can be paired with a smart list of sake and well-chosen wines. But the noodles are the real reason we keep coming back, particularly the lobster ramen — curly noodles bathed in a sweet broth thickened luxuriously with butter and swimming with fat edamame and rosy chunks of perfectly poached shellfish — and the pork udon, a hearty soup filled with fat chewy noodles and chunks of tender braised pork shoulder, with a yolky poached egg floating on the surface of the dish. The best place to enjoy all this is at the bar itself, where you can watch the chefs in action.

After you order your bubble tea at Boba and Crepes, a strip-mall spot tucked off Colorado Boulevard, head over to the shelf between the aquarium and the loveseat, where you’ll find issue after issue of Slam Dunk, the sports-themed manga series about a high-school basketball team in Japan. There are more issues of Slam Dunk than you can read over a cup, more than you can read over the course of a day. The collection is a welcome, personal touch — the kind that’s lost on Boba and Crepes’ corporate-minded competitors.

With coffeehouses on just about every block in Denver, it takes a lot more than a good bean to keep people coming back. At Sugar Bakeshop, that something extra is the service. Every latte slinger here seems eternally happy to see you, as does owner Natalie Slevin, who can usually be found rolling dough for her exquisite pop tarts in the open-fantasy kitchen, serving Novo coffee or chatting with tables. Sugar Bakeshop also has a great daily selection of homemade cupcakes, pastries, burritos and even paleo muffins for finicky foodies — and everything is served with a smile.

Bardo CoffeeHouse is mellow enough that you can hunker down and study for finals here, but you won’t get hushed or scowled at if you stop in to grab coffee with your chatty girlfriends, either. The owners clearly spent a lot of time researching proper coffee-shop ambience, because Bardo has everything: booths, couches, meeting tables, two-tops, window seats, movable tables, multiple rooms, even a patio. The lighting isn’t intrusive, the artwork is minimal and tasteful, and Otis Redding can be heard through the speakers at all hours of the day. Those hours, by the way, are 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. weekdays, and until 3 a.m. on weekends.

Our love affair with Crema Coffee House started over coffee: well-pulled shots, sexy cappuccinos and beans from kick-ass roasters across the country. But now Crema has given us even more reason to hang out: some of the best food you’ll find in any coffeehouse, anywhere. Owner Noah Price brought on chef Jonathan Power to come up with a creative breakfast-and-lunch menu, whose highlights include sweet-and-spicy five-spice granola paired with Noosa yogurt, rose sugar-brûléed grapefruit, a quivering egg custard loaded with bacon and Gruyère in a flaky crust, and a crave-worthy banh mi. Power sprinkles in occasional specials, too, and we have yet to be disappointed by any of them. “I wanted to make really fun, really good food that didn’t overshadow what Noah has done with Crema,” the chef told us when he introduced his menu. And he hasn’t — but he’s definitely created food that matches it.

Drop by the Denver Bicycle Cafe for a bottomless cup of coffee from a local roaster, a freshly baked cookie or even a pint of Colorado craft beer, all welcome components of a solid neighborhood cafe. But where this place really pulls ahead of other new coffee shops is the other side of the business: While you enjoy your cappuccino, you can get your bike serviced by a pro. Partners Peter Roper, Jessica Caouette and Lucas Spaulding wanted to combine their love of cycling and cafe culture to create a community, and that’s exactly what they did with the Denver Bicycle Cafe. The most delicious thing here might be the conversations you have with like-minded customers as you share stories about the delights of the Denver lifestyle.

Readers’ Choice: Yellow Feather

More than 300 restaurants opened in metro Denver last year, and many of them added something new and special to an already vibrant dining scene. But none did it with the aplomb of Pinche Taqueria, a raucous, irreverent spot that grew out of Kevin Morrison’s highly successful food truck. The menu here is focused and simple, featuring an array of gringified tacos packed with succulent meats and punchy flavors, as well as a handful of appetizers and the best churros we’ve ever tasted; the bar program is a frequently evolving homage to tequila, whiskey and debauchery. But this restaurant is so much more than a sum of its parts: Every time we stop by, we love it a little bit more. Pinche Taqueria feeds more than our bellies: It feeds our imagination, letting us enter someone else’s magical world for a while so that we remember, again, what dining out is all about.

Readers’ Choice: Ambria

Also read: “Denver’s ten best new restaurants.”

Making soup dumplings — especially really good soup dumplings — is a craft, and world-class dumpling-makers even fight over the correct number of folds required for the top of each bun. Tao Tao Noodle Bar goes with eighteen. But consuming soup dumplings is also something of an art, especially at Tao Tao, where we want to start shoving the little morsels in our mouths the second they hit the table, burning our esophagi to a crisp. Instead, we wait for the right moment, when we pluck a dumpling by its twist so that none of the liquid can escape, put it in a spoon with a little pepper and vinegar, then nibble a hole in the side so that the soup gushes out of the wrapper and into the spoon, creating a tart, pungent, garlicky broth that warms our hearts and souls. When we’ve sucked that down, we pop the doughy wrap in our mouths and savor the herb-flecked, ground-pork meatball inside. And then we do it again and again and again.

One hit restaurant won’t be enough for Lon Symensma, whose prominence in Denver’s culinary scene has risen like the perfect soufflé. But until the culinary luminary unleashes a spinoff to ChoLon, his Asian-influenced restaurant downtown, we’ll continue to curtsy and bow at his feet for gracing our city with a remarkably refined restaurant and a menu that displays his pivotal role in influencing how we eat. Focused, provocative and ambitious, Symensma’s beautifully presented dishes run wild — as does his imagination — and the results are nothing short of stunning. Open your mouth and you’ll understand why there’s a continued clamor for his food…and more of his restaurants.

Readers’ Choice: Justin Brunson

Gaia Bistro is one of the homiest restaurants around, not least because it’s actually located in an old home. The inside is cozy and comfortable — especially in the winter, when the warren of rooms creates a warm, welcoming haven — but Gaia shines brightest outside. You can eat on the planter-lined patio or at one of the tables scattered across the expansive lawn; when summer settles over the Mile High City, these outdoor areas are always packed on weekends. But on cool weekend mornings, the deck is empty — and when you have a French press full of coffee, one of Gaia’s housemade pastries and a newspaper before you, this can feel like the most perfect place in the world.

Forget Smashburger and Chipotle. Samir Mohammad, the chef of Village Cork, is the best thing to emerge in Denver in years. Long before he could drive, the Miami-born kitchen king, who was raised in New Mexico, was blistering his hands cooking red and green chile, flipping burgers and tossing pizzas, shaping a culinary career that would ultimately lead him to Denver — and to his own unassailable brand of globe-trotting cuisine, which he shares with enamored diners who drop their jaws in awe at each plate. His kitchen might be limited in equipment, but there’s no end to his mad talent and chutzpah.

It’s the blind leading the blind, those people who shun Jeff Osaka’s twelve because they make the mistake of assuming it resides in a so-called “sketchy” neighborhood. It doesn’t. And frankly, we’d go to far worse areas just for the chance to eat a meal from the likes of Osaka. He’s a serious culinary craftsman, whose commitment to cooking — and to his fellow chefs — is unmatched, as is his food, a deft marriage of comfort and current. Add in the fact that he offers a creative, affordable prix fixe menu, and you have one of the most satisfying restaurant experiences in the city…in any neighborhood.

Long gone are the days when chefs sliced and diced behind an iron curtain. Today’s toques like the limelight — and they love being the center of attention, which is all the better for voyeuristic guests who like to eavesdrop on kitchenspeak while also watching a floor show. And at TAG, Troy Guard’s Asian-guided restaurant in Larimer Square, the highly interactive chef’s counter offers the best seats in the house. You can kibbitz with the animated cooks — they’re all talkers — and also banter with Guard, who’s usually right there in the thick of things. And if you’re not sure what to order, just ask: You’ll be flooded with recommendations, all of which will exceed your expectations.

Readers’ Choice: ChoLon Bistro

Fuel Cafe chef-owner Bob Blair is fervent on the topic of sustainability, and discussions about the importance of organic sourcing, local ingredients and where food comes from are frequent topics of conversation at his eclectic restaurant in the Taxi project. But Blair also practices what he preaches, turning out a menu of creative, seasonal and delicious fare that comes from purveyors he has carefully contemplated. If you’re concerned about the same issues, you can rest easy at Fuel knowing your pork comes from happy pigs, your beef from happy cows and your greens from happy gardens that are good for you — and good for the earth, too.

This past summer, when owner Blair Taylor took the staff of his twenty-year-old restaurant on their annual trip to Italy, he used the time to give the interior of Barolo Grill an update, keeping the red-and-gold color scheme but getting rid of the ’90s-era wall hangings and artwork in favor of a cleaner, more classic feel. The menu, too, has been updated. Barolo still offers two ways to dine: à la carte, or from a fixed-price, five-course tasting menu. But the kitchen’s offerings have become more playful, with unexpected combinations — such as risotto and escargot — and unusual garnishes, including persimmon and pumpkin flakes. Impeccable service caps off the experience, and as this restaurant enters its third decade, it has not only reaffirmed its relevance to the Denver dining scene, but evolved into an exciting spot that keeps getting better.

Business at the six-month-old Oak at Fourteenth was on fire when the restaurant actually caught fire last March, forcing owners Bryan Dayton and Steve Redzikowski to rebuild their spot from the ground up. It was a long road back, but after nine months the partners finally reopened Oak’s doors in December, revealing a restaurant that was even better than before. Besides making some big changes to the aesthetic — including an expansion and a decor scheme focused on warm woods and light-blue glass — the partners revamped the menu and drink list, keeping their upscale North American neighborhood restaurant theme but adding a few twists and surprises, including housemade, bottled alcoholic sodas.

Since Aaron Forman opened Table 6, his cheeky, upscale homage to American comfort food, the restaurant has been the subject of a lot of hype, and early raves in national magazines led to the predictable onslaught of food tourists. But if anything, the restaurant has only gotten better over the past decade. Exec chef Scott Parker’s kitchen cooks up a joke-littered lineup of haute comfort cuisine, drawing influence from all over the country. Taste the South in the buttermilk fried chicken, fast food in a burger inspired by In-N-Out Burger, and California in a hand-rolled pasta studded with succulent chunks of lobster. The menu, which changes frequently, pairs to one of the most unique wine lists in town, culled by wine whiz Forman. And whether you’re a first-time diner or a regular, a VIP out-of-towner or a neighbor, Table 6 treats each guest like a good friend.

Readers’ Choice: Steuben’s

It would be nearly impossible to overestimate the magnetism of Fruition — or its chef, Alex Seidel, whose New American restaurant, barely bigger than a walk-in closet, can be credited in part for vaulting Denver’s dining scene into the culinary limelight. Seidel’s reverence for inscrutable seasonal ingredients, many of which he plucks from the soil on his farm in Larkspur, along with his indisputable grasp of presentations and flavor combinations — veal cheeks with roasted chestnuts and foraged wild mushrooms, for example — have raised the bar for restaurants not just in Denver, but all over the country. Seidel wasn’t named a Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef for nothing.

Readers’ Choice: Fruition

Pearl Street Mall, the pedestrian promenade that features everything from dreadlocked stoners to dramatic tightrope walkers, also happens to pimp some of the best restaurants in the state — and we’re not just talking about Frasca Food and Wine. Frasca’s next-door sibling, Pizzeria Locale, is just one of the many reasons why this quirky hub of grub houses continues to awe our palates. There are restaurants for every taste — and several other new kids on the block, including the sultry Pearl Street Steak Room; Riffs Urban Fare, where chef John Platt struts his mad culinary skills; and the Kitchen [Next Door], a jovial community pub that’s the third notch in the belt of the Kitchen and the Kitchen [Upstairs] clan. Last fall, Snooze opened on Pearl Street, too, giving breakfast geeks its sigh-inducing pineapple upside-down pancakes, and Oak at Fourteenth recently rose from the ashes, better than ever. And so is the dining landscape on the Pearl Street Mall.

Readers’ Choice: Highland

After they’d landed the lease for a spot on Alameda, Cafe|Bar owner Dane Huguley and chef Eric Rivera examined the area to determine what kind of restaurant would best fit. The result was a reimagined neighborhood joint, a spot that could lure nearby residents for any occasion, be it a dinner date, a nightcap or a working lunch. With a sexy design and sourcing that focuses on local, sustainably grown ingredients, the pair put together a menu of American fare — which features large portions and a great burger — and an unpretentious bar that does just what the founders set out to do: draw a community of regulars every night of the week.

Buffets appeal to all-you-can-eat gluttons, but while most brunch buffets excel at quantity, rarely do they achieve the same quality as a sit-down brunch. But the extravagant Sunday champagne and mimosa brunch at the Garden Terrace, located in the Inverness Hotel, masters both quality and quantity with seemingly endless indulgences of made-to-order omelets, eggs Benedict, carved meats (including prime rib), cheeses that span the globe, salads and pastas, terrines and pâtés, enough desserts to send Willy Wonka into sugar shock, and the crown jewel: a lovely seafood display that’s anchored with oysters on the half-shell, shrimp and crab legs. The elegant dining room is fancy enough for adults but informal enough for rugrats, and the live piano melodies are the perfect backdrop for a leisurely morning.

Readers’ Choice: Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge

This LoDo shrine to aquatics — thankfully bereft of any Disneyland-under-the-sea nonsense — is quite a catch for crab cakes, catfish and calamari, paddlefish and luxurious caviar, as well as a lovely raw bar glistening with oysters, the true benchmark of a seafood restaurant. Purists will insist that fresh oysters need no adulteration; dispense with the cocktail sauce and the Mignonette, they’ll demand, and for chrissakes, never, ever cook them, they’ll tell you, shuddering at the mere thought of oysters Rockefeller. And Jax does hustle fresh, briny oysters by the boatload, their exposed flesh scented with nothing more than the purity of the exotic sea. But there are exceptions to every rule — even for purists. To wit: the Hama Hama oyster, the fat mollusk floating in a tide pool of classic buerre blanc, its body festooned with translucent orbs of salmon roe, microgreens and scant shavings of black Périgord truffles. Proof positive that life is better on the half shell.

Readers’ Choice: Jax Fish House

There are steak emporiums staked out all over metro Denver, but for a huge whiff of testosterone perfume — for the essential steakhouse experience — head to the Capital Grille. This is a rich man’s utopia, an expanse of power suits and American Express gold cards, of glorious, charred, hand-cut slabs of beef more expensive than seats to Lady Gaga, of indulgent side dishes that make your heart race faster than a Ferrari, of doting, exceptional service reminiscent of old Hollywood glamour, of impeccable wines and cocktails that make your cheeks glow crimson. In other words, there’s a brazen disregard for cow-ardly moderation, which is why the beef palace stands steers above its peers.

Readers’ Choice: The Keg

Growlers, those familiar glass jugs that allow beer-drinkers to take their suds to go, have been around for as long as, well, for as long as people have been drinking beer. But 64-ounce modern growlers can be unwieldy and impractical, and that often let beer go flat within a day. Enter Wit’s End Brewing’s stainless-steel forty-ounce canteens. You can buy one for $20 (including your beer) and refill it whenever you want for $9. (Between fills, you can use it for water or whatever other liquid makes you happy.) A heavy-duty o-ring should keep the beer fresh for at least two weeks. “And besides,” says brewery owner Scott Witsoe, “we couldn’t pass up on the irony of a craft brewery selling beer in forties.”

Brothers Dave and Erik Peterson love beer. That’s why they added a brewery in 1997 to the venerable Glendale watering hole that their dad and uncle started in 1971. This year, the Petersons took that love and hopped it up with a tableside trick — they’re calling it Whole Hops Infusions — that allows customers to experiment with the subtleties of beer’s fragrant flower. Here’s how it works: Order a Bull & Bush beer on tap and then pick one of five hops varietals grown by Jack Rabbit Hill Hops near Hotchkiss. The beer is served in a French press with the crumbled hops cones added. The customer can choose how long to wait before pouring the beer and tasting the effect. A one-minute wait will add a bit of flavor; three minutes will infuse a significant amount; and five minutes will give you an eye-opening hop wallop. It’s a heady idea whose time has come.

Euclid Hall was one of the first upscale restaurants in Denver to tailor its menu — full of rich, hand-cranked sausage, poutine and cheeses — to beer rather than wine, and Denver hasn’t stopped loving the combination. Over the past few months, however, Euclid Hall has upped its game, hosting a variety of events and evenings featuring beers on tap that are just as brilliant as the menu items — and matching together in a way that makes you realize that in Denver, beer really is the new wine.

These days beer lovers in Denver have a lot of choices when it comes to bars, restaurants and tap rooms where they can find great craft brews. But when the besotted masses are looking for the most choices all in one place, they still turn to Falling Rock Tap House, where the 75-plus handles stretch the length of the long bar and have included, at one time or another, just about every big, bold, rare or highly sought-after beer that has come through town. Bring your beer knowledge and your thirst.

Readers’ Choice: Falling Rock Tap House

Just because you can’t pronounce it doesn’t mean you can’t drink it, and the Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Cafe gives you 150 reasons why. The restaurant, which carved out a new niche when it opened on Colfax Avenue in 2007, has always had a stellar lineup of Belgian and American craft beers, both on tap and in bottles. But earlier this year, the original Monk (there are now two more in the metro area) answered a lot of people’s prayers by adding a dozen new handles and doubling its bottle list from around 75 selections to 150. Whether you want a Koningshoeven Quadrupel, a strong blonde from La Chouffe or a Monk’s Cafe Flanders Red Ale, you’ll find it at the Cheeky Monk.

Readers’ Choice: Falling Rock/Old Chicago (tie)

Aurora has developed an unexpected taste for craft-beer culture, and nowhere is that more apparent than during the occasional 50 Cent Wing Night at Dry Dock Brewing. That’s when the crew from the Wing Hut (motto: Hot Craft Wings, Cold Craft Beer) brings its spicy signature dish to the kitchen-less but newly expanded tap room and serves the wings for fifty cents a pop between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. But the Wing Hut (which serves a nice lineup of craft beers itself) will deliver wings to Dry Dock anytime at its standard prices — and you’ll need a couple of cold beers to wash them down, especially the spicy peanut or the habanero.

Tap rooms and food trucks were made for one another. The former needs to offer something for its buzzing customers to put into their stomachs; the latter needs a reliable spot for hungry people — and a parking space. Great Divide figured this out early and has welcomed Denver’s food trucks since they first hit the streets. Now you can find one outside the tap room every afternoon, whether it’s a regular like Basic Kneads Pizza and Chef Driven or occasional drive-bys like Mestizos and Bambu. Get on board.

Land of Sushi opened in a strip mall across from what was then Southglenn Mall — now the Streets at SouthGlenn — a dozen years ago, and quickly made a splash. Over the years, this spot has just gotten better. The restaurant itself doesn’t look like much, but the bare-bones ambience just means there’s nothing to distract your attention from the food — and the food definitely deserves all your attention. Owner Steve Lin gets shipments of fish every day, and he regularly posts specials like live scallops and uber-fresh uni. But even if you’re ordering the usual suspects, like salmon, tuna and yellowtail, you’re assured some of the freshest fish around, excellently cut and beautifully displayed.

Readers’ Choice: Sushi Den

Step into Domo and you feel like you’re stepping into another world. The dining room resembles a dark, enchanted cottage in the forest, with its tables made from stone slabs and seats cut from tree stumps. And even if you score a seat in the sunny back yard, you’re likely to be sitting on a stump in the midst of some industrial grit. But wherever you sit, you’ll feast on real Japanese country cooking: eggy tojimono, donburi bowls topped with raw fish, nabemono hot pots and an incredible list of noodles, including soba, udon and some of the best spicy miso ramen we’ve had this side of the Pacific. Entrees come with sides of pickled vegetables, yams and fermented soybeans. Make sure you budget plenty of time for your meal, because the pace is peaceful — to say the least — but that just gives you more time to soak up the wonderful ambience.

Readers’ Choice: Domo

You won’t find a brewery with a more dedicated clientele than the Copper Kettle, and you won’t find a brewery that caters more to its regulars than this spot owned by Jeremy Gobien and Kristen Kozik. Stuck in a hidden business park between Denver and Aurora, the Copper Kettle has had to expand three times in less than a year of operation, in part because of regulars grateful for a craft-beer outpost on their side of town (a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival didn’t hurt, either). This core group also makes up the brewery’s fifty-member Brew Club, a beer-loving bunch of folks who were the first to buy the equivalent of fifty beers after Copper Kettle opened. Every member gets their own stein, along with special beer rates and opportunities to hang with the owners. “A lot of them, we see three or four times a week, and we know them intimately,” Kozik says. “They have promoted us more than anyone else.”

We’ve never found a better reason to lift our head off the pillow than brunch at Encore. Start the day off right with a plate of ethereal ricotta-filled beignets and a bloody Mary to soothe the debauchery from the night before, then move on to one of the other marvels created by chef Paul Reilly. Our favorite is his magnificent lamb posole, sidekicked with all the necessary accoutrements — sliced radishes, onions, cilantro and lime wedges — and capped by creamy scrambled eggs.

Readers’ Choice: Snooze

Like the stars in the sky, Denver’s Middle Eastern restaurants look alike, indistinguishable carbon copies with similar menus that you can mumble by heart. Hummus, check; falafel, check; baba ghanoush, double check. Mecca Grill, however, separates itself from the rest by virtue of its unassailable hummus, a sumac-dusted smooth purée of chickpeas and tahini, garlic and squirts of fresh-squeezed lemon that’s ringed in nutty olive oil. And the falafel, burnished domes of ground chickpeas stained green with fresh herbs, are so good that it’s all too easy to forget to share.

Readers’ Choice: Jerusalem

We love just about any dish where sweet meets savory in magical harmony, but the epitome of that blessed union may very well be chicken and waffles, an orgy of fried decadence. You’ll find the best in the city at Second Home, a restaurant that commands much of the bottom floor of the JW Marriott in Cherry Creek. Each element of the dish is damn near perfect on its own: The chicken encased in a crackle of golden batter is hot, juicy and tender; the waffle, made with sweet cornmeal and redolent of cheddar, is light and crisp. But tied together and drizzled with sweet, earthy maple syrup, the combination is utter bliss.

Is Denver oversaturated with neighborhood breweries? It’s a question that gets asked a lot these days, but there is a simple answer: Denver can handle as many neighborhood breweries as there are vibrant neighborhoods. One of the most vibrant ‘hoods in town was blessed with its own suds-seller last year when Renegade Brewing opened in the Art District on Santa Fe, and judging by the slurping sounds, the district was thirsty. The brewery, owned by Brian and Khara O’Connell, boasts Spanish architecture, big garage-door windows and even bigger beers, and on First Fridays, the place is packed. Good art needs a muse, and the district has found it with Renegade Brewing.

When Denver Beer Co opened last August, owners Charlie Berger and Patrick Crawford wanted to do something different, and they have largely stuck to their vision of constantly brewing new recipes, almost never returning to the tried and true. While that occasionally frustrates fans of one beer or another, it’s easy to forget your cares while sitting inside the airy, comforting space or outside in the gorgeous Platte Street beer garden — just blocks from where Denver itself bubbled to the surface in 1858. But the liquid gold here is the beer, and Denver Beer Co has already had some success with its brews, winning a bronze medal for its Graham Cracker Porter at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival — a beer that Berger and Crawford decided, thankfully, to make an exception for and brew again…and again.

Readers’ Choice: Denver Beer Co.

Every Indian restaurant in the galaxy seems to feature a lunch buffet, which boasts curry-splattered hotel pans glutted with lukewarm leftovers from last night’s dinner service. But at India’s, the well-organized midday buffet is always clean and replenished before you can blink, shining brightly with more than a dozen dishes that cater to both carnivores and herbivores. For $8.95, you can choose from an embarrassment of riches: cashew-thickened vegetable korma; crimson-flushed tandoori chicken; lamb and chicken curries; peppery papadums; pliant naan fresh from the tandoori oven; and a medley of chutneys and garnishes.

Readers’ Choice: Little India

Taking a trip to the Tasty Weasel Tap Room is like journeying straight to the center of Colorado’s craft-beer-pumping heart. You’ll find a festive atmosphere powered by rollicking tunes and an unconventional attitude, the same one that Oskar Blues — now Colorado’s second-largest brewery — was founded on. Play Skee-Ball on the tournament-style Skee-Ball lanes, take a tour of the barely concealed brewery behind the tap room, get some grub from the brewery’s own food truck, the Oskar Blues Bonewagon, or just chill out at one of the whiskey-barrel-made bar tables. But mostly, try the beers. Because they taste the way the Tasty Weasel feels: hopped up and full of flavor.

Readers’ Choice: Falling Rock Tap House

Ravi Kumar and Ehmad Ansari, two strict vegetarians, opened Masalaa in an Aurora strip mall close to a decade ago, and it’s still going strong — and is still meat-free. While some specialties from the north, as well as Indochinese offerings, have crept onto the list, the focus is definitely food of southern India — and not a single dish contains meat. The best time to try Masalaa is during lunch, when a hot buffet table is filled with spicy curries and bright stews featuring lentils, chickpeas, eggplant and okra. The server will also deliver plenty of hot, bready items to supplement your feast, including the best dosa we’ve had in town.

It’s hard to imagine a brewpub with an ethos that better fits its community than that of Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery. From the amiable and eclectic staff members to the trippy decor, from the big, chewy beers, brewed right on site, to the menu specializing in fresh ingredients and new takes on old classics, Mountain Sun has a vibe that defines Boulder. Show up at 4:20 p.m. (yeah, that 4:20) and you’re likely to find a new beer being tapped, but don’t bring your credit card: Mountain Sun and its sister pubs, Southern Sun and Denver’s Vine Street Pub, don’t take them, although they’ll let you mail your money in later if need be. And this year, Mountain Sun will get even more experimental when the company shifts most of its brewing operations to Denver, allowing the Boulder brewers to free their minds — and their suds.

Readers’ Choice: Wynkoop Brewing Company

It took longer than expected for Todd Colehour and Sean Kenyon, author of Westword‘s “Ask the Bartender,” to get the doors open at their spot in Highland, but the wait was worth it: They created a sexy, sexy place with Williams & Graham. Step across a threshold concealed by a miniature bookstore and you’re in a 1920s-themed world, filled with plush leather, dark woods and quirky artifacts from the age of Prohibition. It’s the perfect setting for enjoying Kenyon’s comprehensive cocktail and spirits list, which includes inventive twists on classics and rare selections from all over the world. And don’t miss chef David Bumgardner’s menu, either: The food is excellent and perfect for pairing.

Readers’ Choice: Renegade Brewing

Before they opened Jai Ho in the spring of 2010, Sathya and Sujatha Narayan had never owned a restaurant. But they noticed a gap in this city’s Indian offerings and decided to fill it — triumphantly. Jai Ho features a massive, mind-addling list of dishes rooted in the southern portion of the subcontinent, with specialties from Kerala, Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu that highlight such ingredients as coconut, pickled gongura (a native sorrel leaf) and mango, all stewed and combined with lentils, chicken, mutton or fish and packed with enough heat to make you break into a sweat. Those are supplemented by a handful of northern Indian preparations — paneers, samosas and tandoori chicken — as well as a few Indochinese offerings. One of those, the chili gobi, a fiery dish made with cauliflower florets, could be our very favorite food from any country.

Readers’ Choice: Little India

Many bars in this town turn out balanced drinks, but the team of bartenders at Denver’s Jax Fish House exhibits a different kind of equilibrium. The restaurant employs a complementary cadre of professionals with varying skills. Some lend deep, geeky spirits knowledge to the list, contributing housemade sodas, knowledge of the classics and inventive mixology wizardry. Others have perfected the true art of tending bar; they’re expert conversationalists and endlessly entertaining — and they remember every drinker’s name. The mix makes Jax a special place to go for a drink; it’s both your friendly neighborhood watering hole and a worthy stop if you’re after a killer cocktail.

Colt & Gray has a clever drink list, a catalogue of classics, twists on classics, private jokes and new inventions, every one of which is testament to the talent of the bar staff, who have some of the deepest spirits knowledge in town. But the way to really experience what this bar can do is to plop down and order a bartender’s choice. After sussing out what you like about a drink — whether that’s a flavor profile or a particular liquor — a bartender will present you with a drink that will likely be exactly what you wanted, yet expand your horizons at the same time.

Tucked in an out-of-the-way corner of Larimer Square, Bistro Vendôme has none of the stuffiness and over-the-top pomp and circumstance that marks some French restaurants — but it has everything a Francophile could ask for. This is a gracious, romantic arbiter of French food, with a kitchen overseen by chef de cuisine Dana Rodriguez. You’ll swoon over her steak tartare haloed with a fried quail egg; fall madly, deeply in lust with the foie gras; propose marriage, if only you could, to Rodriguez’s duck confit. Bistro Vendôme is a thoroughly charming restaurant with a deeply committed, confident chef and a pervasive Parisian-neighborhood spirit that never goes out of vogue.

Readers’ Choice: Le Central

Like most dive bars in this town, the PS Lounge is a place we’d never want to see in the daylight; we’re guessing the old sports paraphernalia and playbills lining the walls would look a lot more grimy and a lot less charming. But at night, the Lounge commands a special place in our dive-loving hearts. The place has its quirks: the cash-only establishment won’t let you keep a running tab, for instance, and you’ll have to walk down the street if you need an ATM. But Pete, the bar’s owner, will also send you a round (or two) of Alabama Slammers, a sweet, Day-Glo-orange concoction made of sloe gin, SoCo and orange juice that tastes more like Tang, just to show his appreciation for your patronage, and he’ll give the ladies in your group each a red rose. And if those gestures aren’t enough to win you over, the down-home atmosphere that draws hipsters and Colfax creatures alike is sure the seal the deal. Dive, he said.

Readers’ Choice: Don’s Club Tavern

As cocktail culture ramped up in Colorado and many spots started focusing on gin-and-housemade-tonic or drinks that were brown, bitter and stirred, Café Brazil decided to give drinkers a place where they could learn about sugarcane spirits, so they added a beach-themed Rum Room. The best education is delivered in the rum flights, lineups that each showcase four of the spot’s 75 offerings. For an understanding of what aging does to alcohol, try the Flor de Cana flight, which offers a side-by-side comparison of the same Nicaraguan rum aged four, five, seven and twelve years. Or experience how four different countries make rum with the South American flight, which includes selections from Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Our favorite could be the Añejo flight, four heady samples of stuff aged at least 21 years, basking in their vanilla-caramel glory and so smooth you could be sipping nice bourbon. If you’re not ready to try your rum neat, Cafe Brazil makes great versions of Caribbean cocktails, including the Brazilian caipirinha, a sexy sweet mojito and batidas — icy fruit juice disguising the spirit so well that it’s almost impossible not to suck down the drink much too fast. And if you’re really into rum, make sure to ask about special offerings not on the list: The Rum Room keeps some rare stuff on a back shelf for true fans.

Scott Diamond, who owns Pints Pub, has been collecting single-malt Scotches for twenty years, and while he claims to have the largest collection of the spirit outside of Great Britain, he’s not just amassing bottles for sport. “One hundred and twenty-five distilleries have been making whisky in Scotland since World War II,” he says. “We have whisky from 124 of those — and no one in the world can make that claim.” Of those 125 distilleries, only 85 or 90 are producing the spirit today, so Diamond has spent the last several years tirelessly hunting down expressions from lost stills (stills that will never produce again) and silent stills (stills that exist but aren’t currently making whisky). If you want to sample the breadth of what single-malt Scotch has to offer, there may be no better spot in the world to do so than Pints Pub, right in the heart of the Golden Triangle.

Let’s get one thing straight: If you snooze, you lose — literally. Forget what hours are actually listed on the website or the door: Pierre Michel Organic French Bakery Cafe, which is shoehorned into a tight space in a sprawling strip mall, often shuts an hour — sometimes two — before the posted closing times, thanks to the breadheads who hurry to snatch up the French bakery’s magnificent fruit pastries, butter croissants, quiches and French baguettes long before you’ve hit the snooze button. The bakery is a community center in Highlands Ranch, drawing regulars who crave everything that comes from the kitchen — particularly the Croque Madame, thick-sliced ham and melty Swiss stacked between butter-slicked slices of house-baked brioche and crowned with two eggs. Just make sure you arrive early to partake in the bakery’s bliss; otherwise, you risk being apologetically turned away at the door.

Readers’ Choice: Lovely Confections

The speakeasy-style, subterranean Green Russell features an inventive cocktail list and a massive library of spirits, which makes it tempting to sample something new instead of sticking with a classic. But that would be a mistake. Order a Manhattan at Green Russell, and you’ll get a question in response: “Bourbon or rye?” That’s how you know you’re in very good drink-mixing hands. We recommend the rye, both because the original Manhattan recipes call for it and because it imparts a nice spice to the drink. The bar here mixes Leopold’s rye with Cocchi di Torino sweet vermouth and two dashes of housemade orange bitters, then stirs it with block ice before fine-mesh straining it into an up glass. And that cherry on top? A tart, juicy globe of booze-marinated fruit that the bar also makes in-house.

Readers’ Choice: Green Russell

We’ve noticed barrel-aged cocktails popping up on a handful of lists, making this a true trend in drink-obsessed Denver. Our favorite comes courtesy of Randy and Ryan Layman, who whip up barrel-aged martinis at Steuben’s. The brother bartenders make a fifteen-liter batch of Martinez cocktail and then put it in a Peach Street Distillers barrel for five to seven weeks, tasting it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis; when it hits the optimal point, they strain and rebottle the cocktail. The result is a silky drink that incorporates all of our favorite characteristics of a martini but has a rounder, sweeter and more caramelly note from its time on oak.

Linger has an excellent beverage program, with an impressive list of wine, beer and cocktails. But we’re particularly awed by how well the bartenders here understand the classics — well enough that they can play with them without bastardizing the purpose of the drink. Consider this martini, for example: a 50/50 gin and Dolin white vermouth split, dashed with orange bitters and served with a flamed orange twist, which gives the depth of caramelized citrus to the first sip. Ask for just a plain, old-school martini, though, and you’ll get a drink that’s the classic two parts gin to one part vermouth, stirred over ice, served up — and far from plain. It’s the epitome of refined refreshment and will make a believer out of even the staunchest anti-martini drinker.

Readers’ Choice: Cruise Room

The Pinche Taqueria cocktail list is downright cheeky. The tequila- and whiskey-focused back bar serves up clever twists on classic Mexican cocktails, as well as wondrous new concoctions. But before the bar ventured off into wordplay and wacky flavors, it worked hard to make sure that it had nailed its house margarita, which also happens to be the only margarita the place makes. The classic blend of tequila and Cointreau and plenty of mouth-puckering lime juice is sweetened with a squirt of simple syrup. Whether you like it with or without salt, these margs are just about perfect, and they go down easily. So easily, in fact, that our only gripe is that you can’t order them by the pitcher.

Readers’ Choice: Rio Grande

Jazz-loving jivesters know that Dazzle has an extensive menu of happy-hour snacks and discounted drinks, including martinis that are shaken, not stirred, tableside. But our favorite item on the current menu is the Louisiana-style hot link sandwich, a delightfully messy, spicy, salty sausage, dressed with bacon-laced collard greens and served up in a bun that can hardly stand the heat — with fries, no less. Nibble at it with a cold and substantial beverage close at hand; your pain receptors will thank you.

We’re big fans of the grimy ambience at the Park Tavern, a dark, sprawling dive with a couple of pool tables and weekly trivia nights. When we want to relax after work at a neighborhood bar, there’s no better place. In fact, when we want to relax at almost any hour, there’s no better spot. That’s because during happy hour, the Park Tavern offers two-for-one deals on wines, wells and drafts — and those happy-hour deals are offered at least twice daily. On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, they’re offered thrice — and on Tuesday, you can get $2.50 you-call-its from 4 p.m. until close. So chances are good that no matter when you drink at the Park Tavern, you’re going to be drinking cheaply.

Late-night revelry? Yes, please! Welcome to the mother of all late-night happy hours, which runs from 10 p.m. to midnight and attracts a rowdy crew of industry folks, theater-goers and the rest of us who can’t stomach another cardboard-crusted pizza delivered by a stoner in a stained shirt. Row 14 understands the rules associated with feeding and lubricating night-crawlers: Offer $5 cocktails, $4 craft beers, $2 PBRs in a can and complement the discounted liquids with food that’s fit for a famished autocrat. Chef Jensen Cummings and his crew turn out everything from duck confit tacos and salmon sashimi to shrimp and foie gras rangoons, along with specials. And then there’s the super-funky, super-secret late-night menu.

Readers’ Choice: The Spot

For more than thirty years, Karl’s FF Delicatessen has used the same ordinary Centennial strip-mall address to hawk extraordinary things. A small market features a vast array of imported treats, including jams, chocolates and cookies. The deli serves up a board of old-world-style sandwiches featuring thinly shaved beef tongue, head cheese or bierwurst, plus specials that include wiener schnitzel, veal bratwurst and spaetzle. Those dishes pair with tart sauerkraut and some of the best potato salad we’ve had in the city. Also? The place pours Paulaner on tap — and honors free refills on beers all day Friday and Saturday, best enjoyed on the shady, beer garden-like patio.

Readers’ Choice: Helga’s

Come happy hour, Lola’s covered patio fills up fast — and with good reason. The kitchen serves up an impressive board of bar bites — including tacos, ceviche and nachos smothered in goat-cheese queso and barbecued pork — paired with a beverage list whose components range from margaritas to Mexican beer and shots of tequila, all at discounted prices. And while our very favorite entry on the happy-hour offerings may be The Deal — two chicken tacos and a can of Top Rope, a Mexican-style beer brewed expressly for the Big Red F restaurants, including Lola, for just $5 — there’s enough on the board to build a full dinner without putting a dent in your wallet. As a bonus, there are few places in town better for mingling with eligible bachelors and bachelorettes.

Readers’ Choice: Stoney’s

Denver is so into cocktail culture that ordering a drink — be it a Manhattan made with Colorado whiskey and handcrafted bitters or a Moscow Mule — can be an agonizing dilemma. Cocktail syllabuses are even beginning to outshine menus, both in breadth and depth. But Williams & Graham, the elegant new speakeasy in Highland, is not only packed with a profundity of knowledge, but it displays a refreshing and deliberate lack of pretense. The bar is commanded by tenders who understand that you want a damn drink, not a judgmental oral exam on why you drink what you do. The cocktails they concoct are bright, fresh and bold, whether they’re classic revivals or modern journeys into territory unknown.

Readers’ Choice: Green Russell

We’ve visited a lot of wine bars in our time, and despite the fact that we should be their ideal customer — we’re obsessed with wine! We have an insatiable thirst! — more often than not we end up disappointed rather than delighted. But that’s never the case at Cellar Wine Bar, which is an incredibly comfortable spot with an amazing array of wine. Walking through the front door, you’re greeted like family by one of Denver’s most passionate wine purveyors, Evan Williams, who practically glows with giddiness over the latest cool pick he can’t wait to pour you. And you might be tempted to simply let him choose, because all of the Cellar’s ten wine flights look ridiculously good. And then there are the possibilities available by the glass — more than fifty vintages. As Cellar approaches its second birthday, we’re starting to suspect that just like a great bottle, this wine bar will only get better with age.

Readers’ Choice: Cru Wine Bar

Denver has a large Ethiopian population, and as a result, we have a wealth of Ethiopian restaurants. The one we keep returning to again and again, though, is Queen of Sheba, a sparsely decorated spot on East Colfax. Owner Zewditu (Zodi) Aboye does all of the cooking here, and she doesn’t rush, so service can be unbelievably slow. But the wait is always worth it: The platter that finally hits your table comes with folds of injera and transcendental stews of lamb, lentils, chickpeas and chicken, plus shish kabob-like tibs. Washed down with an Ethiopian beer, it’s always a feast fit for a Queen.

Readers’ Choice: Arada Restaurant

It’s easy to go crazy at the pastry case at Wooden Spoon, a tiny bakery tucked into a row of Highland storefronts. Every time we stop in, we want to order one of almost everything. We can’t pass up the macarons; the egg white-and-almond-based cookies, filled with buttercream, melt away into nothing on the tongue. Nor can we turn down a lemon meringue mini-pie, the individual-sized flaky crust packed with smooth, tangy lemon filling and topped with ethereally light peaks of meringue. The cinnamon rolls, troweled with tart cream-cheese icing, are not to be missed; the turtle is a rich, sticky mix of chocolate, caramel and pecans. And while you may only be able to take about three bites of the chocolate dome, they’ll be three glorious spoonfuls of dense chocolate ganache encrusted with chocolate fondant on a thin chocolate cookie.

Never had West African food before? No matter. Plop down in a wicker chair at African Grill and Bar, and owners Osei and Adwoa Ford-Wuo will walk your table through dozens of dishes, adding personal anecdotes about Africa, advising you on what kind of meat to order (goat, mostly) and sharing their favorite dishes: jollof rice, their number one; jollof rice with plantain, their number-one number one; and fufu, the only thing they need to be happy. Then they’ll step back into the kitchen and cook your meal, turning out dishes that feature such West African staples as plantains, tomatoes, goat meat, cassava and peanut butter. The joint also makes excellent pan-fried chicken, and the brave should try the spot’s special infused alcohol, which Osei says is meant to rile up your sexuality.

Few cultures are more romantic than the French, and À Côté Bar à Absinthe channels that spirit flawlessly. This cozy sliver of a spot can become whatever you want it to on a first amorous rendezvous — whether that’s an intimate dinner location, a low-key happy-hour spot or a place to seal the deal with a nightcap. The restaurant has a menu built for sharing, and it features all sorts of sexy foods, from silky charcuterie and decadent imported cheeses to open-face sandwiches and seasonal small plates to ethereal desserts. Everything pairs to a good wine list and solid cocktails, and nibbles are served beneath walls lined with art and a gorgeous chandelier made of colored glass. It’s also much less formal than its sibling restaurant, Z Cuisine, making it much easier to duck out after one drink if that’s what you need to do.

Readers’ Choice: Vesta Dipping Grill

Telly Topakas is a veteran restaurateur who also owns a Greek spot in Colorado Springs. But he wanted to give Denver a more upscale Greek restaurant, and he did just that when he opened Axios Estiatorio last fall. It occupies a prime address in the Berkeley neighborhood and channels the Mediterranean in its decor; the space is comfortable and seductive. Topakas hired a novice to Greek cuisine to man the burners, and as a result, the Axios menu captures the joy of Greek culture in dishes such as dolmades, calamari and good feta with olives without strictly adhering to tradition. The food, like the space itself, is fresh, interesting and incredibly satisfying. Opa!

Like a glistening oasis in a seemingly endless stretch of desert, twelve reaches out to thirsty foodies with what is consistently one of the town’s best wine lists — and definitely Denver’s best by-the-glass list. Each version is more swoon-worthy than the last, and chef/owner Jeff Osaka and his talented right hand (and wine guru) Tristan Toney recently rolled out a brand-spankin’-new set of fifteen supremely quaffable sips. A great by-the-glass list must be able to multi-task like a mofo, simultaneously appealing to pre-dinner (or hell, sometimes no-dinner) guests who’re eager to drink around a bit; satisfy a tableful of diners enjoying disparate dishes; and tantalize curious wine lovers with intriguing new labels. The list at twelve does all this and more — for less, because when you’re dining at the bar, all wines by the glass are half-price. No wonder twelve hits it out of the Ballpark neighborhood, every single time.

Readers’ Choice: Lala’s Wine Bar & Pizzeria

We fell head over heels in love with Row 14’s wine list the first time we laid eyes on it. Curated with a heady mix of precision, nuance and a food-focused viewpoint by owner David Schneider, this list reads like a wine geek’s all-star lineup of fantasy bottles, and is definitely edgier than other rosters in this city — edgier, but not unapproachable. Oenophile-worthy bottles of chenin blanc and grüner veltliner cuddle up to familiar pinot grigio; varietal cab franc and carmenère share space with pinots from around the globe. But what truly makes this list so sublime is its ongoing, wholehearted dedication to repping the entire wide world of wine — and that includes paying respect via its “Colorado Proud” flight to some of the best bottles to be found right here in our own back yard.