Best Place for a Little Tongue 2015 | Olive & Finch | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Place for a Little Tongue

Olive & Finch

Danielle Lirette

Chef/restaurateur Mary Nguyen came to prominence with her elegant interpretations of Vietnamese cuisine, but her love of European cafe culture prompted her to open Olive & Finch, an all-day market serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in a casual, bustling atmosphere that encourages lingering and neighborly exchanges. The overall menu board is delicious and comforting, but it's the Greggers tongue sandwich that has us talking. The finicky cut, which can yield tough results in inexperienced hands, is cooked low and slow before being piled onto a crusty baguette with sweet caramelized onions and red peppers. A smear of tarragon aioli adds bright, herbal notes while a dab of roasted-garlic purée balances the mineral qualities of the tongue with rustic, earthy flavor. A cascade of arugula lends a fresh and bitter bite.

Best Pâté

Trillium

Back in 2011, chef-owner Ryan Leinonen transformed a hundred-year-old Ballpark-neighborhood pawn shop into a glossy but approachable modern Scandinavian restaurant that rapidly became known for its Swedish-, Norwegian- and Finnish-influenced-menu, which pays special attention to smoked and brined fish and smorgasbord appetizers. Trillium is not shy about serving assertive fish and seafood, nor about making sure that diners taste some strong flavors — which is why it makes sense that the house signature pâté is a far cry from bland or ordinary, even though it's meatier than much of the rest of the menu. Leinonen's Hudson Valley foie gras pâté features liver that's rich, buttery and plated with pickled foraged mushrooms, "Grandma's rieska" (traditional Finnish flatbread), cloudberry preserves and a sprinkle of birch-smoked Icelandic sea salt. Cloudberries are rare, delicate and difficult to source, but they add a flawless touch of tart fruitiness for a dish — and a restaurant — that puts flavors forward.

Best Affordable Foie Gras

Williams & Graham

Williams & Graham

Foie gras is among the most luxurious of luxury foods, and the fatty goose- or duck-liver delicacies are generally considered expensive — and controversial. At Williams & Graham, the sizzling-hot LoHi spot that channels a 1920s speakeasy, the cocktails are vintage-classy (you can feel perfectly at ease ordering a Brandy Alexander or a throwback absinthe specialty drink), and the menu is focused on upscale small plates with "rarebits" like roasted bone marrow with bacon jam, black-tea-smoked quail with pine-nut polenta, and seasonal deviled-egg specialties. So Williams & Graham is well-situated to feature an oft-provocative and pricey indulgence like foie gras in the most elegantly simple and completely inexpensive way: seared tidbits of duck liver over tiny toast tips with enough sweet-tart blackberry gastrique for dipping and a sprinkle of hazelnuts for bite. At just $10 a plate, the only controversy here is how many orders you can get at one time.

Best Chicken Wings

Boone's Tavern

Mark Antonation

Boone's Tavern, a favorite in the University of Denver neighborhood, underwent some changes last year when part of the space was walled off and turned into the more upscale Atticus and the rest of the bar was given an upgrade over its old working-class, sports-bar vibe. One thing that didn't change, though, was the kitchen's knack for delivering tasty smokehouse meats. While Boone's offers its chicken wings either fried or smoked, go with the smoked to get a true taste of the house specialty. The additional layer of outdoorsy flavor beneath the sauce puts these wings in a class of their own. As for the sauce itself, eight options should make any wing lover happy, but the jalapeño gold stands out with just the right combination of heat, sweetness and tang.

Readers' choice: Fire on the Mountain

Best Place to Get in the Skin Game

Pinche Taqueria

Chefs have been finding more and more creative ways to sell off-cuts of meat, either through the noble guise of nose-to-tail cooking or as an attempt to capture ethnic authenticity. Where chicken is concerned, once the breasts and thighs were gone, most people traditionally called it quits — or at least they did until that clever Buffalo bar owner figured out how to sell those mostly-skin-and-bone wings. But chicken skin, as it turns out, is one of the most flavorful bits of the bird, especially when fried or roasted to a crisp. Skipping past the meat and bones entirely, Pinche's chicken chicharrones present nothing but skin, sliced into bite-sized curls and deep-fried to a mahogany crisp. A post-fryer dusting of seasoning adds chili-powder zip, and a dunk in tart salsa casera balances the fatty nuggets with zesty lime and a face-slap of heat from habanero peppers. The cute appetizer bowl is small and cheap enough for a pre-taco indulgence, and these chicharrones won't fill you up like their heavier pork-rind cousins.

Best Fried Chicken

The Post Brewing Company

Courtesy The Post Chicken & Beer

We knew the beer at the Post Brewing Company would be good, since it's crafted by nationally recognized brewmaster Bryan Selders. But who would've guessed the chicken would be as much of a draw? Jamey Fader, culinary director of Big Red F, admits to getting "geeky on chicken," traveling around the country and coming home with a spreadsheet of variables — brines, flours, etc. — to test recipes by, until he and chef-partner Brett Smith and Big Red F founder Dave Query hit upon the winning combination for the place they opened last year in a former VFW post. The result: chicken that's consistently moist, with a shell that gets its addictiveness from buttermilk, gluten-free seasoned flour, and a resting period that allows the coating to lose moisture so it fries up extra-crisp. This isn't just picnic chicken — i.e., chicken to eat while playing cornhole on the patio and sipping beer.

Readers' choice: Tom's Home Cookin'

Best Fish and Chips

Argyll Whisky Beer

Fish and chips isn't the national dish, or even the city's addiction. That might change, however, if every man, woman and child residing at 5,280 feet above sea level could get their hands on the fish and chips at Argyll Whisky Beer. The plate is everything you want from fish and chips: generous pieces of mild, flaky cod; coating that crackles when you take a bite, thanks to a hint of cornstarch in the batter; and thick steak fries. Before you douse those spuds with vinegar, the way the Brits do, take a moment to appreciate their spot-on texture, which comes from the labor-intensive process dreamed up by culinary director John Broening: Potatoes are boiled, dehydrated in the freezer, fried at a low temperature, refrozen, then finally fried to order.

Readers' choice: GB Fish & Chips

Best Creative Use of Pop Rocks

TAG

In its simplest form, this dish at TAG translates to yellowtail sashimi with Pop Rocks. The combo may sound totally bizarre, but this is just one of those times when you have to trust that chef-owner Troy Guard, a master manipulator of tastebuds and senses, can do no wrong. The dish is a complex mix of flash-seared hamachi, jalapeños, baby tatsoi greens, Japanese ginger, yuzu white soy and, yes, a smattering of Pop Rocks, which create a tingly party on your tongue while somehow not overpowering the subtle flavors of the fish. Hungry for more? Head up Larimer to Guard's Los Chingones, where you can get a drink with Pop Rocks, too.

Best House-Cured Fish

Rosenberg's Deli

Folks are picky about their bagels, and Rosenberg's owner Josh Pollack has gone beyond the call of duty in his attempt to re-create one of New York's most iconic foods, going so far as to replicate New York City water in his Five Points kitchen. But don't get so distracted by the bagels that you forget to order Pollack's cured and preserved fish, either on a sandwich or from the deli case to go. Several different styles of salmon beckon from behind the glass, including smoked Norwegian and Scottish varieties, delicate and almost-translucent gravlax, and heartier kippered salmon. Other East Coast favorites like sable and smoked whitefish are sure to please recent transplants and Denver natives alike, while house-pickled herring features powerful old-world flavors of tangy vinegar, pickling spice and squares of herring that almost melt on the tongue. An array of seafood like this is a true rarity in this town, made even more special by the fact that everything is prepared on site.

Best Shrimp and Grits

Acorn

While Acorn is primarily known for its elevated small plates, don't overlook the comfort foods here. Shrimp and grits is typically a Southern staple, but the dish is becoming more and more prevalent up north (or at least in the northern Southwest). Acorn has figured out how to give those Southerners a run for their money with a super-creamy bowl of Tabasco sofrito and white-wine grits with succulent laughing shrimp. This haute, homey dish is perfect for getting you through the long Colorado winter.

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