Dear Democratic National Convention delegates, candidates, committee heads, chairpersons, hangers-on, fixers, runners, dealers, pimps, organizers, producers, enablers and members of the press: I know you’ve been bombarded with helpful hints about how to enjoy your time in Denver. You’ve been told which restaurants are worth visiting, which bars are good…
Jump on the bandwagon! Others may bitch about the traffic and inconvenience, but I’m incredibly enthusiastic about the Democratic National Convention coming to town, almost apoplectic at the idea of Denver being the center of the country. Maybe this is a holdover from my time living in New York City;…
I am not one of the forty or fifty proud sporting “TEACHERS Make the Difference” or “Ask a Teacher!” stickers on their blouses and button-ups, trading in blue tickets for draft beers and tall cocktails, grazing around a spread of meat and cheese and veggies while carrying conference materials under…
SAT prep question: Z Cuisine À Côté is to Le Central as apples are to blank. If you said toaster ovens, typewriters, shag carpeting or anything of the sort, you’re correct — because Le Central and À Côté (reviewed this week) could not be more different. While À Côté is…
The sandwich is the perfect American food because it appeals to our sense of independence and individuality. You can put anything you want between two pieces of bread — from peanut butter and bananas like Elvis, to rigatoni and marinara sauce like my college buddy, Patrick. And although the sandwich…
There is no better spot to be in Denver on a warm, late summer evening than at Oblio’s Pizzeria in Park Hill, where Suzanne, the bartender, mixes up batches of perfect sangrias, neighbors walk — or drive their golf carts — over for hot, scrumptious pizza, and the patio sizzles…
The Wine Loft, a link in a Louisiana-based chain that may have the most irritating web site in the world (unless you like a lot of techno music and little information – see for yourself here), just opened last week at 1527 Wazee Street, in the former home of Pharmaca…
A Cote has all the quirky, dream-of-Paris charms of Z, and when it opened this past January, it quickly became a destination in its own right. Now the two restaurants fill in tandem — generally within an hour of opening – and stay that way. For hours. In the meantime,…
Peach Street bourbon’s secret ingredient is Olathe sweet corn. Peach Street Distillers, a company based in Palisade, has just released the first bourbon — legal, that is — ever made in Colorado. Peach Street already makes Goat Vodka and Jackelope Gin, and its Peach Street Distillers’ Straight Bourbon Whiskey had…
Gaetano’s opens its new patio with a party
You’d think that one Brazilian steakhouse might be enough for all of LoDo — much less a three- block stretch of Wynkoop Street. But then you wouldn’t be thinking like Hines, the international real estate firm that just announced that Fogo de Chão Churrascaria has signed a lease for 12,610…
Cap’n Crunch’s Treasure Hunt Crunch Quaker Oats Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: The majority of the cereal consists of the building blocks (and they really do look like blocks) of the Cap’n Crunch brand: puffy yellow squares of delectability made from corn and oat flour. They’re supplemented…
Tony’s, Tony’s, Tony’s! The sign is up across the street: Tony’s Market opening early 2009. It’s a sight for sore eyes at Westword, where for a month now we’ve been staring across the street at 950 Broadway, with its boarded-up broken glass and the remains of the Planned Parenthood sign,…
Just in time for the near-inevitable clusterfuck of the DNC, 8 Rivers — the Caribbean/Jamaican concept that’s been pushed in Denver by chef Scott Durrah for years — is set to open the doors on its newest location on August 20th. The space at 1550 Blake Street, a former sporting-goods…
Just got off the phone with Troy Guard, former crown prince of the Jim Sullivan restaurant empire. I him caught up in the mountains in the middle of his preparation for the Telluride Festival of the Arts, going on today through Sunday. He’s holding down the culinary side of things…
A while back, two great friends of the Candy Girls went on an epic adventure through Japan and kindly asked if there was anything that we’d like them to bring back for us. We immediately thought of you, dear readers, and asked for candy! (That and we really really wanted…
Welcome to Mel’s. July’s heat dried up the outdoor patios, but now that temperatures have cooled off, patios are heating up again. Promising to be among the hottest in town: Mel’s Anti-Bistro at 1120 East Sixth Avenue. Charlie Master reports that the new patio opened this week, and it’s already…
My notes from my most recent meal at Il Posto are almost indecipherable — hasty scrawls on the back of an envelope I’d found in my car, on a credit-card receipt from my pocket. Moscato, they say. Froot loops, Van CA, stale, bur-stuffed chix boob, peach salt, shirt cuffs and…
In last week’s Bite Me, I got into the ongoing saga of the Master family and their restaurant empire, which now consists of just one Denver restaurant: Mel’s Anti-Bistro, at 1120 East Sixth Avenue. Talking with Mel and Jane and Charlie, I realized that I hadn’t talked with one of…
I grew up in Denver and remember seeing the Billy’s Inn sign at the corner of 44th and Lowell forever — but somehow, I’d never made it inside this iconic bar. The building got its start as a service station in the ’20s; in 1933, Billy and Judy Smith turned…
One of the first things I notice about Lodo’s Bar & Grill (1946 Market Street) is that many of the female employees have curves, and I don’t mean the humps made by a pair of 34Ds over a size-two waist. I mean hips, and asses that explain themselves. This actually…
Some restaurants change over time. Some places stay exactly the same. The mission of Second Helping is to separate one from the other. Via was an awesome restaurant when I reviewed it sixteen months ago. Opened by Venanzio and Anthony Momo — who also own Cucina Coloré in Cherry Creek…
