Guess where I’m drinking?

The night before Thanksgiving is always a busy night for bars. After all, when your biggest mental challenge the next day will be choosing between pumpkin or apple pie, a hangover doesn’t seem like a big deal. So my friend decided shotgunning beers and dancing till closing sounded like a…

SkyBox is open at SouthGlenn, and it’s no gastropub

Originally, Hollywood Theaters was boasting that SkyBox Lounge, the restaurant that’s part of the new Southglenn Stadium 14 in Centennial, would be a “gastropub.” But now that the place has opened, that label has been dumped in favor of “a creative twist on American cuisine.” Although it’s unlikely that any…

Today: Christmas, Southern Living style

Stop by the Dillard’s at the new Towne Center of Aurora from 1-4 p.m. today, and you can pick up a copy of the Southern Living Christmas Cookbook for just $10. It’s packed with recipes for good food, and buying it benefts a good cause: proceeds from the sales will…

Today: Escape your relatives at Bass Pro Shop or La Rumba

Going stir crazy on Thanksgiving? The Bass Pro Shop at 7970 East 49th Avenue is open until 6 p.m. today, and starting at 5 p.m., the store will host the Great Turkey Campout with free hot chocolate and s’mores at outdoor firepits, with prize giveaways until 8 p.m.; for more…

After my first bite at Argyll, I was ready to eat my words

It worried me that Argyll, the new restaurant from Robert Thompson, called itself a “gastropub,” a word I hate with a rare and white-hot passion that only a true word geek can muster for the hating of a bunch of letters. It worried me that the very first word on…

Leo’s Manhattan at Jax Fish House

I was sitting at the bar at Jax in LoDo on a snowy Sunday afternoon, enjoying the quiet while also enjoying Leo’s Manhattan ($10), made with New York Apple Whiskey, Dolin Vermouth de Chambéry, muddled apple and pumpkin pie spice. And I couldn’t have been happier. As the snow piled…

The good times keep rolling at Lucile’s

There are two things they do real well in New Orleans: drink and eat. New York might be a great town for chefs; San Francisco might be a Garden of Eden for foodies. But New Orleans is a town made for eaters — men and women for whom dinner isn’t…

Guess where I’m drinking?

I’ve lost track of all the cocktails I’ve drunk this week, but the one in the above pic stood out from among the usual suspects. This is very much a holiday slammer, complete with a housemade cinnamon-apple chip garnish. Question is, where’d I slam it? Special bonus: Every Friday, anyone…

Mellow Mushroom to open at Tabor Center

Mellow Mushroom outlets are popping up like, well, mushrooms. Another outlet of the Georgia-based pizza chain is slated to open next June in the Tabor Center, joining a line-up that already includes the Cheesecake Factory, Green Fine Salad, Corner Bakery and Ling & Louie’s. There are over a hundred Mellow…

Guess where I’m eating?

You want to talk about bad food photography? This is bad food photography — mostly because there’s just no good way to make a lump of meat and cheese like this look tasty until someone invents Smell-O-Vision or scratch-and-sniff websites. Still, buried in the middle of this photographic nightmare are…

Argyll’s Sergio Romero, under the lights

Before I ever ate at Argyll, I was worried about the place. I worried about the space that Argyll occupies (the ex-Squealing Pig location in Cherry Creek) and the guy running the show (Robert Thompson, ex of Brasserie Rouge). I worried that it was calling itself a gastropub, a word…

What’s cooking: Pete Marczyk makes chocolate chunk pecan pie

Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s choicest ingredients home with them, and cook up a feast. Last month, Pete…

Steuben’s going mobile

After I chatted yesterday with Josh Wolkon of Steuben’s and Vesta, he kindly forwarded me an article from the travel section of the Los Angeles Times about the sudden, fierce boom in food trucks that has gripped the foodie Shangri La of Portland. That city now has about 400 trucks,…

Top ten ways we’ve ruined turkey

Admit it: There are really only two good ways to enjoy Thanksgiving turkey: fresh from the oven and carved on the table on the big day itself, and on sandwiches for days on end afterward. Everything else is more or less a sociological experiment — a study, perhaps, on just…

Chef and Tell with James Rugile of Venue

Head down 32nd Avenue in Highland, and you’re likely to find 25-year-old James Rugile in the kitchen at Venue, turning out some of the most incredibly delicious food in Denver (if you haven’t tried Rugile’s shrimp and grits, go now). The studious young chef, who grew up in Basalt and…

Il Posto now serving lunch

Last month, chef/owner Andrea Frizzi told Jason Sheehan that he’d soon be serving lunch at Il Posto, his excellent Italian restaurant at 2011 East 17th Avenue. And now he’s made good on that promise: Il Posto opened for lunch this week. It could be just the place to get an…

Tonight: Get lit at Mezcal and Rockbar

Kick off the holiday season tonight at the annual Lighting of Mezcal. The restaurant at 3230 East Colfax Avenue will light up at 7 p.m. — but you can get lit on the restaurant’s award-winning margaritas during two extended happy hours, which will run from noon until 7 p.m. and…

Argyll goes gastropubbin’

It worried me that Argyll is located in a subterranean address in Cherry Creek — which seems to almost always doom any restaurant to a slow, lingering death. It worried me that this particular subterranean address used to be the home of the Squealing Pig: a terrible excuse for an…

Short-lived Grazio Italian Grill & Bar to become Blue Rox Grill

The website doesn’t give away any clues, but the very visible public notice sign is plunged deep into the dirt in front of the former Grazio Italian Grill & Bar space at 9271 Park Meadows Drive. According to the wooden post, that restaurant, which lasted about as long as a…