Wait a minute… didn’t that place used to be Swimclub?

Yeah, it did. Swimclub 32, where sake and hot-rock wagyu kobe ruled. Small plates and Asian-influenced nouvelle cuisine was what Swimclub 32 started out with (as documented in the picture at right), before it shifted into a strange, Italian fusion concept with a garden on the roof and sous-vide prep in the minuscule galley. Next…

Five cents a beer at the Fainting Goat!

Tonight, and tonight only, starting at 9:30 p.m. all Smithwick’s pours at the Fainting Goat, the new bar at 846 Broadway, will be just a nickel. Until the joint runs out of the Irish ale, that is, and we’ve been assured they have at least sixty pints. Cheers!…

Beer and Cheer: Isolation Ale

Isolation Ale Odell Brewing Company Fort Collins Isolation Ale is one of several local winter warmers – Avery’s Old Jubilation, Boulder Beer’s Never Summer and Breckenridge Brewery’s Christmas Ale among them. But this traditional English-style strong ale is lighter and easier to drink than some of the others. It’s a…

Candy Girls: Flake and Curly Wurly bars

So Candy Girls is cheating a little this week by devouring some tasty treats from across the pond that aren’t technically new. But what better time of year to revisit foreign favorites, especially if you’re looking for fun and economical gifts for loved ones? We got these at the House…

Charlie Master could be getting back in the game

When I talked with Charlie Master over a month ago, he stated rather conclusively that he was getting out of the restaurant business for good once his parents, Mel and Jane Master, sold the last Mel’s – whose former home at 1120 East Sixth Avenue is now occupied by Mojitos…

What Denver restaurants would you recommend to Food & Wine?

Mayor John Hickenlooper, in New York City for an appearance on Good Morning America earlier today, isn’t taking off the rest of the day. He’ll be pitching the city’s restaurant scene to Food & Wine travel editor Jen Murphy. Murphy’s most recent Denver reference was in the September issue, which…

Izakaya Den joins the lunch bunch

In the Best of Denver 2008, Jason Sheehan proclaimed Izakaya Den, the Japanese restaurant at 1518 South Pearl Street, as the Best New Restaurant last year. And now Izakaya’s gone one better — by adding weekend lunch, which could well be the most exotic brunch in town. The restaurant is…

Ho, ho, ho: Twigs has closed — for now

Above is the season’s greeting that Nancy Levine, our intrepid Drink of the Week columnist, found when she was out last night judging the 2008 Holiday Cocktail Competition. Seventeen restaurants — all members of the Denver Independent Network of Restaurants — had signed up to create special holiday drinks for this contest…

This just in: twelverestaurant lowers prices, not expectations

Just got this e-mail from Jeff Osaka, the chef/owner of twelverestaurant, the elegant, if pricy, place that opened exactly a month ago. “Due to the current economy, and feedback from our loyal customers, twelverestaurant has responded quickly and adjusted its price structure to reflect this demand. However, changes will not…

Beer and Cheer: Double Bastard

Double Bastard Stone Brewing Company Escondido, California Double Bastard, made by one of my two favorite breweries in the country, packs a punch — and feels no guilt about the violence. This beer, highly alcoholic (more than 10 percent), highly sought after, rich in flavor and texture, is one of…

Veggie Girl: Karma Asian

Hot-and-sour soup is my new winter comfort food, thanks to Karma, a great new Asian fusion spot at 22 South Broadway. I tried my first bowl a couple of weeks ago and was instantly addicted to the potent brew. It’s the spiciest, most perfect hot-and-sour soup I’ve found, full of…

Warwick Denver Hotel has a new executive chef

Kristen Cofrades is the new executive chef at Warwick Denver Hotel, overseeing Randolph’s Restaurant & Bar (which has one of the best patios in town), as well as the room service and banquet departments of the hotel at 1776 Grant Street. Cofrades comes to the Warwick (and a post formerly…

A brief (100 year) history of Sixth Avenue

“South Capitol Hill was booming in the early 20th century.  The area on the ridge south of Cheesman Park sloping toward the Country Club neighborhood rapidly emerged as a premier residential location as Denver recovered from the Panic of 1893.  Before long, distinguished houses dotted 7th Avenue.  Nearby were houses…

Cheers! We’re not number three in binge-drinking

The report in today’s Rocky Mountain News was a real eye-opener (and we’re not talking a Bloody Mary): According to Bill Scanlan’s “State fades a little in health stats,” Colorado fell from the 16th to the 19th healthiest state in the latest report from America’s Health Rankings, largely because of a rise…

Oodles of noodles coming to town

In Bite Me this week, I talk about a couple of noodle joints coming to town — Bones and Happy Noodle House — and a New Yorker piece that helped fuel the fad. But Frank Bonanno and Dave Query aren’t the only local restaurant empire-builders getting in on this act. The Jet…

Noodling around

Noodle shops are big again, and a couple of upcoming openings speak to a new trend/fad among serious chefs going slumming for fun. It seems to have been inspired by a fantastic article in the March 24 New Yorker by Larissa MacFarquhar on chef David Chang and the opening of…

Go Fish will hook you

For more photos of Go Fish, go to westword.com/slideshow. I first came to sushi as a teenager in upstate New York. Cutting class at Irondequoit High School, I’d duck out during lunch or skip remedial math to run up to Wegmans a few blocks away for terrible grocery-store sushi in…

Downtown’s last true dive

The bummer about Bar Bar (officially the Carioca Cafe, at 2060 Champa Street) is not that the bathrooms are glacial, grimy, graffiti-covered dungeons. It’s not that the volatile mix of white, black, brown and out-of-town patrons are wont to drink until an altercation seems like a good idea. It’s not…

Currying favor

Go Fish certainly has Asian-American fusion down, and that’s because the owners learned a few things at Spicy Basil, which they’d opened a few years before in the other corner of the same building. The fact that Spicy Basil had replaced a failed barbecue restaurant and I didn’t hold the…

Parsley drops physics

I don’t have fond memories of my high school physics teacher, Mr. Woods. Although he was funny, quirky and endearingly curmudgeonly, I was terrible at physics, and for this he had little patience. Furthermore, he once accused me of having cheated on my homework, which wasn’t true. I cheated in…

Beer and Cheer: Anchor Christmas Ale

Christmas Ale Anchor Brewing Company San Francisco Like other spiced beers, this one hides the malt and hops, but in this case, it worked. The usual pumpkin pie-like suspects — like cinnamon, ginger and clove — were there, as well as what I believe was a touch of myrrh. (By…

Argonaut toasts its new store

It was hard to tell if the three homeless men gathered outside the brand-new Argonaut Wine & Liquor this morning were waiting for the store to open to the public or for Mayor John Hickenlooper, who was scheduled to arrive for the grand-opening ceremony. Either way, they got what they…