Great Divide made beer drinkers in six states cry last week when the Denver brewery acknowledged that it had pulled its beers from the shelves there. In addition to Michigan, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Kentucky, New Mexico and Alaska, the brewer is leaving Washington, D.C. and has significantly reduced its distribution…
We have a quick contest for you on this fine Thursday: We’re giving one Cafe Society commenter two “VIP Mugs” (you and a guest) to this Saturday’s Breckenridge Beer Fest. To find out how to win, keep reading…
“I got my passion from Tony,” Kelly Whitaker of Pizzeria Basta, which I reviewed this week, told me. “I carried that through everything else I did.” He was talking about Antonio Race, the native Italian who founded Pulcinella Ristorante in Fort Collins back in 1991; Whitaker got his kitchen start…
Eric Chiappetta Pizza Republica 5375 Landmark Place, Greenwood Village 720-489-2030 www.pizzarepublica.com This is part two of my interview with Eric Chiappetta, executive chef of Pizza Republica. In part one of this interview, Chiappetta weighs in on why he believes the cook at Griff’s Hamburgers is a culinary god, and that…
After short-lived runs as Jezebel’s Juke Joint & Brothel and Gin & Sin Speakeasy over the past year, the hundred-year-old building at 3862 High Street has re-opened as the High Street Bar & Grill. Frank Blea, who’s owned the building for over three decades, says that some of his family…
Let the good times roll! Lucile’s Creole Cafe has now brought a taste of the bayou to Littleton. The fifth link in a chain that started in 1980 in Boulder, then added Fort Collins and Longmont, and stretched to Denver in 2005, is now in the south suburbs, too, occupying…
The comments about Denver’s Five Best Burgers are still sizzling, and now people are getting hot about our Six Best Pizzas, adding five of our favorites to Pizzeria Basta, winner of the Best Pizza in the Best of Denver 2011. No Enzo’s? No Oven? At least Lipster was polite about…
Colorado Free University will host a Chocolate and Wine Pairing class with Julie Pech at its Lowry Campus, 7653 East First Place; it runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight and costs $29 to $41, plus a $10 materials fee. Call 303-399-0093 or visit www.freeu.com. And Gaetano’s, 3760 Tejon Street,…
You wouldn’t believe us if we told you how many times we stuffed our piehole in our quest to find the city’s best pizza in our lead-up to this year’s Best of Denver issue, which, of course, included pizza — several pizzas, as a matter of fact, starting with our…
When I first met Kelly Whitaker, chef-owner of Boulder’s Pizzeria Basta, we talked about my possibly helping in the front of the house at the new restaurant he was then planning for Boulder. While I pondered the move, I eventually decided against it: I’d recently started working at Frasca Food…
For this week’s Cafe review, I headed to Boulder and Pizzeria Basta, where chef-owner Kelly Whitaker and his partner, Alan Henkin, have been pushing to make pizza better since Basta opened in early 2010. Basta means enough, but enough will never be enough here. Here’s a serving of food porn…
Westword ran a cover story on SAME Cafe (SAME stands for “So All May Eat”) more than two years ago — and the pay-what-you-can concept restaurant is still going strong, judging from the lunch crowd yesterday (not to mention the two other pay-what-you-can eateries that have opened around town). The…
Yesterday afternoon, while stopped at the light at Sixth and Broadway, I noticed a pair of construction workers maneuvering a sign — a big sign that kept swaying — up the side of the brick building whose former tenant was Daphne’s Greek Cafe, which closed just over a year ago…
Do you sense something? Is that…could it be…summer in the air? Actually, no. But it is spring, and that means spring beer releases. What’s on tap this month? How about Odell Double Pilsner, Left Hand Good JuJu, Ska’s Mexican Logger and three beers from Great Divide, just to name a…
If you’ve been here before, then you’ll recognize the origin of those red, white, blue and spice-dusted chips immediately. If not, then you’ll want someone to guess correctly ASAP so you can run over there and get some. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the…
Eric Chiappetta Pizza Republica 5375 Landmark Place, Greenwood Village 720-489-2030 www.pizzarepublica.com Eric Chiappetta’s first job in the kitchen had nothing whatsoever to do with a palpitating passion to actually cook. “I was sixteen, horny and I wanted to make enough money to take girls to the movies,” confesses Chiappetta, the…
We’ve reached the middle of the work week, and as we all know, Wednesday has its own, well-earned nickname: Hump Day. Why? Maybe because from here, having gotten Monday and Tuesday out of the way, we can start contemplating the joys of the coming weekend, and some real hump days…
Denver could soon be awash in places owned by Landry’s Restaurants. On Monday, Tilman Fertitta, chairman and CEO of Landry’s (who has a 10.1 percent ownership of the company, according to the Houston Chronicle), made an all-cash offer for the McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants chain worth more than $137…
The news that Steak ‘n Shake is finally coming to town — Centennial, to be exact, with a groundbreaking this month — has fans of this iconic Midwestern burger drooling. Consider this from Lynn: Thank god there is finally good food coming to Denver! There are some decent restaurants, but…
Working on spring-cleaning your diet? Head to Green Spaces Colorado will host the CHOMP Vegan Supper Club from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight. Admission is a suggested donation of $6; BYO plate and utensils. For more information, go to www.plantsanimals.org. For information on dozens of culinary events around town, visit…
“Alex Weiser, man. He grows the best potatoes.” Kelly Whitaker was standing in front of his roaring wood-fired oven at Pizzeria Basta, slicing a tiny, misshapen purple tuber with exacting precision, then spreading the disks on a just-stretched circle of dough. “I used to get potatoes from a local farm…
It’s been a banner year for pizza in Boulder: Between January 2010 and January 2011, three ambitious pizzerias opened their doors, all with wood-fired ovens baking renditions of Napolitano or Napolitano-inspired pizzas. Kelly Whitaker, chef and owner of Pizzeria Basta, says the competition has actually helped; his restaurant’s numbers were…
