Food & Drink

The basement is a hot place to be right now. Last year, two of Denver’s top restaurateurs picked up underground spots in Larimer Square, opening unique concepts right at the edge of LoDo. The first was Green Russell, a faux speakeasy fronted with a pie shop that Frank Bonanno opened…

We’ve seen a succession of restaurant openings over the last several months, but Linger, the second restaurant from Justin Cucci, the owner/chef of Root Down, may very well be the most anticipated new arrival of the year. And after a remarkably good dinner there last week, at which Cucci, along…

It goes to reason that a bar justifiably admired for its beer roster would also serve a bang-up beer-based soup bolstered by crumbles of bacon and housemade pretzel nubs. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I…

If you hear it from the Food Channel, then it must be true. This crew’s latest list — of top-ten dessert trends — includes mass wedding cake genocide, tableside theatrics, Cinnamon Twists from Taco Bell, beer paired with doughnuts, two-fisting nuts (and yes, “two-fisting” is being used as a verb…

Cafe Society served up just three Guess where? contests during the short last week, ranging from molcajete stew at El Diablo to a massive slab of fried chicken on a biscuit from the Biscuit Bus to this order of chips and queso. For correctly identifying it as coming from Prohibition,…

Two restaurants are looking for new homes this month. On Friday afternoon, Lori Midson broke the news that Robert Thompson will be opening Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar in the current home of Baur’s Ristorante; owner Jimmy Lambatos will close Baur’s at the end of the month, and is…

The Justice league of Street Food — the fleet of food trucks that took our bellies by storm last summer — is back for a second season of gorging, beginning tomorrow, when ten trucks and carts post up at 3507 Ringsby Court, directly north of Fuel Cafe, in the paved…

Robert Thompson is on a roll. The proprietor of Argyll, a splendid gastropub in Cherry Creek, and the brainchild behind Punch Bowl, which will open in November in the Baker ‘hood, has just inked a deal, complete with a 25-year lease, to take over Baur’s Ristorante, Jimmy Lambatos’s elegant –…

There are plenty of arbitrary, food-related holidays, but one dedicated to doughnuts? Now, that something to get excited about. Not everyone is celebrating National Donuts Day — such local shops as Walton Donuts and Marty’s 47th Street Donuts, along with the chain Winchell’s Donut House, are staying out of the…

A week ago, we brought you a list of the five best spots for ice cream in Denver, including a couple of restaurants that happen to serve up great scoops. But while one of those — Frasca Food & Wine — makes its gelati and sorbeti in house, it’s worth…

The calls have been coming in fast and furious to Biker Jim’s cell phone, with befuddled callers wanting to know why the hell his hot dog cart isn’t parked curbside at its usual address on the corner of the 16th Street Mall and California Street. Here’s your answer: A film…

In the Best of Denver 2011, we named Common Grounds the Best Coffeehouse for Finding a Date, thanks to the constant crowd of young professionals who mingle over cappuccinos. And because we’re big proponents of ditching online dating and blind set-ups every now and then in favor of meeting people…

The Justice League of Street Food — Denver’s elite fleet of food truck movers and shakers — are back with a vengeance after last summer’s incredibly successful debut, and this Saturday, from 5 to 10 p.m., the motorcade is revving up for its first party of the summer season, pimping…

While the pipsqueaks at the Squeaky Bean have spent the last few weeks monkeying around — pilfering pigs, for example — this past year hasn’t exactly been a playful wallow in the mud for owners Johnny Ballen and Josh Olsen, executive chef Max MacKissock, bar manager Sean Kenyon and the…

Welcome to In the Weeds. Kyle will be right with you — most likely to complain about something. Usually he is pleasant, but this is his place to blow off some steam. Don’t take it personally; he just needs to vent because he’s been doing this for about thirteen years…

The Smiling Moose moved its corporate offices to Boulder last year; tomorrow that town finally gets its own Smiling Moose Deli, in the Twenty Ninth Street development. (Update: The opening was originally slated for Thursday, then today, and was just pushed back to tomorrow.) “Smiling Moose Deli is a perfect…

The days are getting hotter, which means it’s prime time for barbecue, whether in your backyard or one of “Denver’s five best BBQ joints,” as listed yesterday by Laura Shunk. Mr Sauce would add Moe’s, a homegrown chain that got its start in Vail. JimRome is nominating Serious Texas BBQ,…