“I’ve done eight restaurant openings and they’re all the same,” says chef/restaurateur Jeff Osaka. “Nothing ever goes as planned.” Despite delays, and almost a year after he closed his first Denver restaurant, twelve, Osaka is finally ready to swing open the door of Osaka Ramen on Tuesday, May 5 on…
The name Fractured Prune tells us two things. First, inside jokes don’t travel well. Because as many times as the company tells its tale about Prunella Shriek, the athlete who had a knack for injuring herself playing “men’s” sports, it still sounds more like a joke than anything else. Second,…
What’s better than enjoying a nice dinner out on the town? How about enjoying that same dinner and knowing that you are helping someone dealing with a life-threatening illness. Since 1991, Project Angel Heart has served over 5,000,000 meals to people in need in metro Denver and Colorado Springs; the…
When a wall of water surged through downtown Denver at around 8 p.m. on June 16, 1965, it destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses and changed the course of the city’s history. One of the businesses that was wrecked in the flood (the subject of this week’s Westword cover story,…
Oskar Blues and residents of Longmont, Colorado, and Brevard, North Carolina, raised $7,000 last week at fundraisers designed to help Michelle Wilkins, the Longmont woman who was attacked by Dynel Lane, who was pretending to sell baby and maternity clothes on Craigslist; that story made national and international headlines because of…
The Colorado Boulevard branch of Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli closed last fall but signs of a new tenant recently went up. Boozy ice cream maker Twisted Cream, which has been selling cocktail-based flavors to Denver restaurants for the past two years, is opening a sit-down ice cream shop next to Dae…
Aurora’s Havana Street is awash with some of the most diverse ethnic cuisine in the Denver metro area; the cultural landscape is primed with every kind of experience, from fine-ish dining to lovable dives to mom and pop eateries from almost every nationality and culture: Ethiopian, Vietnamese pho, dollar-a-scoop Chinese,…
Something old, something new. While the venerable Cherry Cricket, which Gretchen Kurtz reviews this week, continues to be a favorite with readers, our Best Burger award in the Best of Denver 2015 went to a relative newcomer, Jimmy’s Urban Bar & Grill. But it’s getting harder and harder to find…
The Colorado craft-brewing scene is growing — which means that several head brewers are going. There have been several high-profile changes recently at the area’s top breweries. The first took place when Great Divide head brewer Taylor Rees, who had been with the brewery for ten years, teamed up with Austin…
Chef Kris Padalino of Glaze After Glaze’s Heather Alcott and Sushi Sasa’s Wayne Conwell parted ways and Glaze by Sasa became Glaze again, Alcott hired Kris Padalino, a pastry chef with a reputation for creative desserts and great breads. That made sense, because Glaze had gotten its start as a bakery…
Like the rest of town, Cherry Creek is in the midst of a growth spurt, as steel supports etch the sky, giving structure to the mid-rises that are changing this part of the skyline. After a multi-year lull in which attention turned elsewhere, restaurateurs are once again moving into the…
Coohills in LoDo is hosting the United Kingdom-based Creative Whiskey Company for an informative, four-course whiskey dinner tonight. Creative Whiskey Company owner and founder David Stirk, along with Robert Stickler, a Denver-based Master of Whisky and president and CEO of The Voice of Whisky, will host the dinner, which will showcase…
Earlier this month, Argyll Whisky Beer completed a few seamless upgrades to its dining room and bar, opening up the walls all around the bar to improve flow from the dining room and atrium, adding more bar tables and lowering the pass-through to the kitchen to improve lighting in the…
The Airedale at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Before Mike Henderson started thinking of names for his cocktails at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox, he was thinking of a name for the brand new restaurant itself. Henderson and owner Justin Cucci bounced around hundreds of possible names for the restaurant — located in a building…
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This month marks a first anniversary for WaterCourse Foods, but not it’s not a commemoration of the restaurant’s first year in business — the veteran vegetarian restaurant has been serving its meatless menu for 17 years. This anniversary marks one year as an all-vegan restaurant — a Veganniversary, as it’s…
The more I delve into the Korean restaurant scene in metro Denver (centered primarily in Aurora), the more I realize that Koreans and Americans have a great deal in common when it comes to ideas about food — restaurant food, at least. My first stop was Tofu House, where despite…
“I’m like a mechanic in there,” says comic Sam Tallent of his gig at Le Central tonight. “I don’t think I’m like a chef. I can put together a meal.” And so Tallent will be helping out the chef, who’ll be demonstrating the five mother sauces of French cuisine while…
The second annual BrüFrou set up on Saturday at Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, serving beer and food pairing from dozens of different Denver eateries and Colorado breweries. Guests wandered past jets, gliders and a Star Wars X-wing fighter while tasting bites from food trucks, pizza joints…
Mark and Kristy Dym, the couple behind the Ballpark neighborhood favorite Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza and its younger sibling in the Vallagio development in Englewood, have plans to double the number of pizzerias in their stable by the end of this year. A new Marco’s Coal Fired Pizza will open in…
Axios Estiatorio, opened back in 2011, has become a Berkeley neighborhood mainstay among newer, trendier bars and restaurants that have folks flocking to the hopping stretch of Tennyson Street between 38th and 44th Avenues. Dinner is already a known and loved quantity — Axios won our Best Greek Restaurant award…
No. 37: Lao Sausage at the Asian Cajun The Vietnamese-by-way-of-New Orleans restaurant phenomena hit Denver a few years ago but never spread much beyond the neighborhoods near the intersection of Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue. The Asian Cajun wasn’t the first to serve up the concept here, but it has…
