Food & Drink

A sushi chef wields more than a knife. His skill–both at cutting fish and at cutting up–can make or break a Japanese restaurant. Some sushi chefs give you the silent treatment, making you feel like an unruly student in a Buddhist temple during meditation time; others are as deft at…

Fruit loopy: Beware of representatives from Ocean Spray lurking around local supermarkets and handing out free samples of Craisins, dried cranberry snacks that the slogan says taste “surprisingly sweet.” What’s the surprise? Five minutes after my toddler ingested the whole four-ounce sample bag, she was doing the Hustle through the…

In an industry where one out of every four new ventures goes belly-up within the first two years, Noel Cunningham has beaten the odds. He has not one, but three successful restaurants: Strings, Ciao! Baby and 240 Union. “Actually, I don’t know that I perceive them as being successful,” Cunningham…

I was standing in line at the grocery store when two women ahead of me started discussing where to take their families for dinner that night. “I’m so sick of Chinese,” said the first. “Have you tried Vietnamese?” The second woman looked at her companion as though she’d just asked…

Shut-and-open case: Retirement lasted “about 62 1/2 days,” says Gordon Hummel. Late last year he and wife Jean closed Hummel’s Delicatessen and Sidewalk Cafe, at 2360 East Third Avenue, where for thirty years the duo had purveyed top-notch sandwiches and the best potato salad in town. But they didn’t stay…

Oh, Mexico: Oooh, the letter-writers are at it again, this time raking me over the coals for my March 28 review of Los Troncos, a refried-beans-and-rice eatery at 730 East Sixth Avenue that I took to task for offering 48 greasy variations on a Tostada! Enchilada! Burrito! theme. The review…

He’s one of Denver’s best-known restaurateurs and nationally recognized as well. He’s been featured in the most prestigious cooking magazines, lauded with all the important cooking awards. His pride and joy, Zenith American Grill, just received the much-coveted Mobil Guide four-star rating. He’s Kevin Taylor, and you’re not. But that…

“You are gonna looooove these,” the waitress sang to a customer seated behind us. Along with everyone else in the dining room, we turned to see exactly what these were–and feasted our eyes on what appeared to be a platter piled with whipped cream. An amazing pile of whipped cream,…

Deli dose: Venturing an opinion on politics and religion is one thing, but don’t mess with people’s favorite delis. That was the message delivered in a flood of responses to two recent columns. In the February 29 Mouthing Off, I responded to a reader’s query about good Italian and Jewish…

It’s like when your mother told you to clean up your room. “Awwww, Mom, do I have to?” you’d whine. “It seems like I just did that last week.” But in fact, as she’d inform you, your room had qualified for the condemned list for several months. And you were…

I was at City Spirit Cafe to feed my soul as well as my stomach. The menu of options for my tarot reading were as follows: I could ask a specific question, such as, “Will I get that big raise I’ve been asking for?” I could ask about some part…

Getting juiced up: If you haven’t heard the ads or seen the trucks, then surely you’ve noticed the colorful display cases full of Odwalla at area grocery stores. Remember the brief smart-drink phase? Odwalla, the juice of the Nineties, pulls from some of the same natural sources–ginseng, megadoses of vitamin…

The deli news: In this column two weeks ago, I responded to two letters from people looking for good delis. Specifically, good Italian and Jewish delis–but that didn’t stop Rachel Genatassio from writing to suggest her favorite deli, which is neither Italian nor Jewish. “Looking for clean, pleasant surroundings with…

Sometimes it seems as though there are more Chinese restaurants in Denver than there are people in China. And sorting through all these eateries isn’t an easy task, particularly since one man’s moo shu pork is another’s dried-out pancake with bland pig. So my recent discoveries of two true pearls…

“Well, this is definitely a step up from Red Lobster,” I said to my husband as we headed into Aurora’s Italian Fisherman. But not that much higher: It turns out that the owners of both Italian Fisherman locations–in Aurora and Littleton–once worked for General Mills, which used to own Red…

Trouble’s brewing: Late last year Tara Dunn, co-owner of Great Divide Brewing Company, and Jeff Mendel, part-owner of Tabernash Brewing Company, got together to form for Colorado what several other states already have: an organization of brewers. Its purpose would be to serve as an information clearinghouse, to promote Colorado…

New deli: People moving to Denver from bigger cities–any bigger cities–invariably miss their hometown delis. I haven’t been able to find anyone who can give me a reasonable explanation as to why so few delis here cut the mustard, but much of my mail comes from transplants desperate for good…

Restaurant consultants make a lot of money telling eateries to change the color of their curtains and to put tiramisu on their dessert menus if they want to attract more customers. But the truth is, featuring all the recommended fads du jour doesn’t guarantee prosperity in the food business–just ask…

Things to do in Denver when you’re fed: The executive editor of Food & Wine magazine, Denise Martin, ate her way through Denver this past weekend. Here to check out some of our finest chefs for possible inclusion in the publication’s annual “Ten Best New Chefs” awards, Martin relied on…

With new Italian restaurants sprouting around town like mold on a piece of old focaccia, it’s easy to forget that several trattorias have been plying the pappardelle for some time–and doing a good job of it. One of those standbys, Al Fresco, has been undergoing a few growing pains of…

Most restaurant owners fall into one of two categories: chef or businessman. The chef usually winds up with his own place after suffering for years as a misunderstood artiste forced to conform to the mad wishes of the money people, only to discover that you need dough to make a…