I know what you’re thinking: Cook’s Fresh Market (see page 69) sounds like a pretty interesting place, but you’d rather have gum surgery than drive to the Denver Tech Center during rush hour (which runs from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. on every day ending with a Y). Fortunately, Denver…
Ahhh, Thanksgiving: the official start to the glorious holiday season, when friends and family are certain to drive you crazy — or at least drive you to drink. And there’s no better place to do that than Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill, a wonderfully dilapidated Denver drinking institution and a…
Sean Kelly is no celebrity chef. His hands give him away. They’re big, strong, the wrists thick from handling sauté pans, fingertips mauled, palms rough as untreated leather. Cooks know cooks from the feel of each others’ hands, and they can gauge how long someone’s been in the business from…
“I wanted the perfect meal. I also wanted — to be absolutely frank — Col. Walter E. Kurtz, Lord Jim, Lawrence of Arabia, Kim Philby, the Consul, Fowler, Tony Po, B. Traven, Christopher Walken…I wanted to find — no, I wanted to be — one of those debauched heroes and…
Jose Lara knows what people associate with tequila. “Having a really great time, getting crazy,” he says. “And headaches, throwing up. Everybody has had a tequila nightmare.” Mine is coming back to me: Freshman year in college, I picked up hitchhiker Stanley Claxton, who spied my first bottle of Jose…
When you’re searching for a delicious martini downtown, all you have to do is look up. A bright-blue neon martini glass — complete with a green neon olive and red neon swizzle stick — glows like a beacon on the facade of Marlowe’s, a longtime favorite of tourists, business types…
There are moments in a chef’s life that forever define him. The first taste of foie gras; the oily reek of anchovies; the crisp, celery-stalk snap of a rabbit’s neck being broken; the explosion on the back of the tongue set off by the full, huge, deep-brown flavor of a…
Keeping it in the family: When you taste Anthony Sarlo’s cooking (see review, page 67), you get a taste of the family he grew up in. But Vita Bella isn’t the only restaurant in the area flavored by this Colorado restaurant clan. Anthony’s Aunt Elisa and her husband, Troy Heitman,…
A century ago, the neighborhood we all know and love as LoDo was teeming with fancy saloons, gambling halls, opium dens, rough cowboys and sinful prostitutes — also known as “brides of the multitudes” or “soiled doves.” Capitalizing on this history of debauchery, the Soiled Dove is still dark and…
It was Saturday night in Littleton, and the wife and I were arguing. She was upset because she couldn’t find her favorite pair of black strappy heels, so she’d fallen back on the black Doc Martens that dated from her days as a Philly punk-rock girl, and one of our…
In its continuing attempt to make the world a better place through the distribution of caffeine to the masses, Allegro Coffee Company has started a partnership program that brings foreign coffee growers to the United States for an exchange of ideas on traditional handcrafted methods of growing, roasting and brewing…
When “Daddy” Bruce Randolph Jr. says that “it’s more blessed to give than receive,” he knows what he’s talking about. Randolph’s father, the late “Daddy” Bruce Randolph Sr., was Colorado’s best-known food philanthropist, a down-home Mother Teresa who gave away thousands of home-cooked meals — especially at Thanksgiving — from…
2575 West Main Street
It might be chilly outside, but the scene inside Mynt Lounge, a chic new LoDo club, is hotter than Miami Beach in July. Mynt features extensive mojito and martini lineups. Among the martinis is the Strawberry Banana Martini ($7), made with Stoli Strasberi Vodka and crème de banana. Served shaken,…
The name is not Cue-ba Cue-ba. It’s sexier than that, smoother. Say Koo-ba Koo-ba, and the words should slide off your tongue like you’re sucking on silk. The sound should make you feel like putting on a white Panama hat and growing a pencil-thin moustache. That goes for you ladies,…
What’s a word worth these days? Pick a good one like “organic” and you could be talking billions and billions of dollars. On Monday, October 21, the National Organic Standards and Labels program went into effect, ending over a decade of wrangling in Washington, D.C. The program guarantees that all…
Legend has it that sake, the Japanese wine made from fermented rice, was originally called kuchikami no sake, which means “chewing in the mouth sake.” An entire village would gather to chew up nuts, rice and other tasty grains and then spit the result into a tub, where the enzymes…
Chefs love fire. Food may be their medium, but fire is their element. In the pan, fire is magic — binding, breaking and bringing out the hidden life in everything it touches. Emulsion, reduction, a blanc and a point — when you learn how to play with fire, you have…
Adega Restaurant & Wine Bar (1700 Wynkoop Street), whose May opening was the talk of the town, just got a big boost to its reputation as the defining restaurant in Denver’s up-and-coming food scene with its inclusion in Esquire’s 21st-annual “Best New Restaurants” survey. Food and travel writer John Mariani…
When Joe Scherber tells you his pumpkin patch produced just three pumpkins this year, it sounds like his crop was a bust. But together those three pumpkins weigh over 2,220 pounds, making the Wheat Ridge dentist one of the most fruitful pumpkin growers in the nation. Scherber raises massive pumpkins…
Cool, dark and smoothly sexy — that description applies to both Sambuca Jazz Cafe and its Chocolate Mint Martini. Made with Fris Vodka, DeKuyper Peppermint Schnapps and Godiva Dark Chocolate Liqueur and garnished with a cherry, this black martini ($8) is served straight-up with a thin layer of ice on…
Stepping off the crowded Pearl Street Mall and into Triana is like burying your face in a flamenco dancer’s best dress or jumping into a pile of autumn leaves. Fiery reds and oranges explode in this small space. The ceiling is painted black, a dark sky but for the exposed…
