Cook’s Fresh Market unveils new dinner menu

Cook’s Fresh Market is serving up a new dish to downtown dwellers and commuters. The upscale grocer at 1600 Glenarm has begun selling bistro dinners on weeknights from 5 to 8 p.m. for an unbelievably not-so upscale price of under $10 an entree. Menu items include wood roasted beef tri-tip…

Part two: Chef and Tell with Chad Clevenger

This is part two of Lori Midson’s interview with Chad Clevenger, exec chef of Mel’s Bar and Grill. You can read part one of Midson’s interview with Clevenger here. Rules of conduct in your kitchen: Work clean, work quiet, ask questions if you don’t know the answer, respect your team,…

Gourmet hot dogs and sausages coming soon to Broadway and Larimer

Just got off the phone with Bill Feid, a Denver entrepreneur who’s never done a restaurant, but has firm plans in place to open Billy’s, a gourmet hot dog and sausage shack, at 2445 Larimer Street in mid-November. According to Feid, this isn’t going to be your average dog house…

Counting down to tapas at Ondo’s

There are some restaurants I talk about a lot. There are others that I talk about hardly at all. And one of the very few places that I talk about continuously (some would say obsessively) isn’t even open yet. It’s Ondo’s. Ah, Ondo’s….I’ve been dreaming about having a new tapas…

Tonight: A taste of wine — or Bette Davis

Go on a bar crawl with a long-dead cinema star tonight when Matthew Martin, Bette Davis impersonator extraordinaire, leads a Bette Davis Bar Crawl in anticipation of the October 30 Awful Things in Denver party being thrown by the Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life. The crawl starts at 8…

Chili Verde serves nearly perfect Pueblan food

Ceviche is a nearly perfect dish — simple and organic and beautifully balanced, using the strengths of every single ingredient to subtly alter every other; a dish virtually unchanged through generations of cooks, both amateur and professional. No one knows for sure where ceviche was invented, only that it most…

Autumn Apple Cooler at Jonesy’s

My family wasn’t the Irish pub kind. Some of my earliest, fondest memories involve going with my dad to Trader Vic’s in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Or the Brown Palace. Or Eddie Bohn’s Pig ‘N Whistle on West Colfax, where we’d sit in one of those red booths with his pals…

Stella Cordova is gone, but Chubby’s endures

After my last meal at Chili Verde, a new and very traditional Mexican restaurant that was about to get its liquor license, I stopped by Chubby’s, a forty-year-old Mexican joint that never has (and never will) serve a drop. They’re in the same northwest Denver neighborhood, yet fill very different…

Soldiering on through the snow at Frasca

This just in from the boys at Frasca: “Despite receiving over 14 inches of snow (and counting…) on Frasca’s patio today, we’ll still be open this evening for regular dinner service. We hope to see you soon.” Two feet of snow. More on the way. But what do chefs do?…

Recession (and belly) friendly lunch: Vietnamese steamed bun

If there was such a thing as a Vietnamese Whopper, the banh bao would be it. Banh bao, a steamed rice dumpling, is like its Chinese cousin, the char siu bao. But instead of harboring BBQ pork, banh bao contains two types of pork mixed together: salty ground pork with…

Getting in early at Il Posto

I got a call from chef Andrea Frizzi yesterday, thanking me for including his little 17th Avenue restaurant in my list of Denver’s best Italian spots, and then letting me know that he’ll soon add lunch service at Il Posto. Oh, and not just any lunch. I checked out the…

Up Close: Chili Verde

In this week’s restaurant review, Jason Sheehan discovers a taste of Puebla at Chili Verde. See more of Mark Manger’s photos on the slideshow page…

No gin for you! Hendrick’s contest postponed

The bad weather has put the Hendrick’s Gin competition hosted by the Colorado Bartenders Guild at Lola tonight on ice. I was slated to be a judge, so I’m both relieved and disappointed by the postponement. The contest has been tentatively rescheduled for November 16. In the meantime, you might…

Guess where I’m eating?

Is there anything more disappointing than a dish of old, cold chicharrones? That’s what Jason Sheehan got on his recent visit to Chubby’s. Then again, is there anything more sinfully porkorific than a dish of absolutely fresh, hot chicharrones? That’s what we got when we stopped by another Mexican restaurant,…

Buck up! The Irish coffee’s on at McCormick’s

On the first big snow day, restaurants and bars offer a flurry of cold-weather specials. But it’s hard to beat the standing deal at McCormick’s Fish House & Bar, the cozy spot tucked into the Oxford Hotel at 17th and Wazee streets. Whenever it’s snowing, this McCormick’s offers Irish coffee…

Live Nation takes a shot with 901 Silver Tequila

901 Silver Tequila, the ultra premium tequila brand that just launched this year, has sealed a multi-year deal with Live Nation that makes it the official tequila sponsor at Live Nation venues across the country. It’s Live Nation’s first spirits sponsorship on a national level. “We are thrilled to be…

Last week to take part in TAG’s effort to fight hunger

Time is running out to help TAG Restaurant fight world hunger while also enjoying a tasty bite. Throughout October, TAG, located at 1441 Larimer Street, has been donating a portion of its sales to the “Fill the Cup” campaign, an effort by the Friends of the World Food Program to…

Chef and Tell with Chad Clevenger of Mel’s Bar and Grill

“It’s interesting how my hands are in everything now,” muses Chad Clevenger, the chef-owner of Mel’s Bar and Grill, the Greenwood Village restaurant that Mel and Janie Master opened two years ago and then sold to Clevenger, a Florida native, last year. “Before this restaurant, I could have cared less…

What’s cooking: Pete Marczyk rolls with risotto

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. This is the…

Update: Great Scotts benefit cancelled

Westword staffers who grew up in the northern ‘burbs are great fans of Great Scotts Eatery, the red-and-white-striped, ’50s-style diner at 7510 Highway 287 in Broomfield. They speak fondly of the burgers, the fries, the shakes. And today, Great Scotts was supposed to be serving up its good food for…