Tonight: A Decade of Decadence and Belgian Quadrupel Beer

Head up to the Avery Tap Room, 5763 Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder, which is hosting A Decade of Decadence: Ten Years of the Reverend Belgian Quadrupel Beer Dinner and Vertical Tasting. The meal, which starts at 7 p.m., includes five courses and lots of beer; admission is $60. Drew Bixby…

Sugar High: Hi Rise Bakery

UPDATE: Check out our interview with head baker Sammy Marquez and catch his recipe for raspberry shortbread bars.Oh, my. This beauty of a sticky bun, studded with pecans and glazed with a crème brûlée-like shell, is certainly one way to start off your morning at Hi Rise (2162 Larimer Street). But there…

Plan ahead: Holiday mezcal dinner at Tambien

“Instead of doing a mezcal-tequila tasting like we normally do, we came up with some killer cocktails to pair with each course,” says Sean Yontz, executive chef of Tambien (250 Steele Street), the gathering quarters for tomorrow night’s multi-course holiday mezcal dinner. The fact that Yontz is serving mole de…

Colorado Egg Producers make an egg-celent gesture

One in eight Coloradoans will struggle to put food on the table this holiday season, and 99 percent of food banks in the state have reported an enormous surge in the need for emergency assistance. Kudos, then, to the Colorado Egg Producers, whose Good Egg Project is lending a helping…

What’s cooking: Pete Marczyk falls for carrots and squash

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…

Part two: Chef and Tell with Brian Laird of Barolo Grill

This is part two of my interview with Brian Laird, exec chef of Barolo Grill. You can read part one of my interview with Laird here. Best food city in America: San Francisco. It’s all about what I love most: fresh ingredients, seafood, farm-raised animals, vegetables, cheese, wine and beer,…

Matt Mine delivers his bacon brittle to Bourdain

For the chef at a seafood restaurant — Oceanaire — Matt Mine sure loves his bacon. He often features a slab of it on Oceanaire’s menu, and he recently cooked up a batch of bacon brittle with Anthony Bourdain in mind, which was included in the pre-talk meal that Oceanaire…

Tonight: Celebrate Beaujolais at Mile High Station, Le Central

From 6 to 10 p.m. tonight, the French-American Chamber of Commerce and Alliance Francaise de Denver will celebrate this year’s release of Beaujolais and other French wines, with a culinary challenge showcasing French-inspired cuisine by top local chefs. The fun’s at Mile High Station, 2027 West Lower Colfax Avenue, and…

Tonight: Family-style Italian at Tony’s Market

We all know you can buy food at Tony’s Market, but at 6 p.m. tonight, you’ll be eating inside the store at 950 Broadway, which is hosting an Italian family dinner. The meal, $30, features crostine di salmone, melanzana alla parmigiana, rosbif in Barolo, insalata d’indivia and panna cotta con…

Barbecue: It’s what’s for breakfast at Cabin Creek

Colorado has recently gone through something of a barbecue boom. Sure, there are places like M&D’s that have been around since forever, but over the past five years, Colorado in general (and Denver in particular) has seen a surge in joints that exist for the greater worship of the smoker…

Update: Ondo’s sets a new opening date

Just got off the blower with Curt Steinbecker (that’s him in the funny hat up there, standing beside his wife, Deicy) of Ondo’s, the Spanish tapas restaurant that I’ve been waiting forever for at 250 Steele Street (in the former home of French 250). Okay, so maybe it hasn’t quite…

Waffle-pocalypse!!! An open letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President. As you are no doubt aware, the Kellogg Company recently announced that it is experiencing a catastrophic waffle shortfall owing to a sort of “perfect storm” of circumstances: scheduled maintenance and upgrades to their army of waffle-making robots, flood damage in the vast waffle fields of the…

Guess where I’m eating?

I love flapjacks as much as the next person (maybe even more), but the smoked salmon, red onion and caper pizza that you see in the above snap is seriously, deliriously delicious. And it’s just one of several breakfast pizzas on the new brunch menu at a Denver restaurant that’s…

Falling for autumn dishes in Denver

As someone who hails from the Midwest and has never lived in a place that didn’t have seasons, I take seasonal food very seriously. Last year a friend visiting from southern California stared at me in bewilderment as I savored the first batch of strawberries from the farmers’ market. While…

Chef and Tell with Brian Laird of Barolo Grill

“It was a step off the cliff for sure, but at the same time, I just knew that I was a good fit for the job,” says Brian Laird of Barolo Grill, the Northern Italian restaurant whose kitchen Laird has cooked in for the past twelve years — the last…