Apparently yesterday was national coffee day. So we found it coincidentally great timing to visit Commonwealth’s new coffee shop at 5225 East 38th Avenue in Park Hill, where every day is coffee day. The wholesale roastery is not new to Denver; owners Jason Farrar and Ryan Fisher are ready to celebrate three…
Earlier this month Barolo Grill’s owner, Ryan Fletter, and chef, Darrel Truett, announced plans to open a quick-service pasta counter called Chow Morso inside Avanti Food & Beverage at 3200 Tejon Street. Those plans have nearly come to fruition; Fletter and Truett hope to open Chow Morso sometime next week, possibly as…
No. 55: Lobster, Egg and Caviar Bruschetta at Bar Fausto There’s not exactly a tricked-out kitchen at RiNo cocktail haunt Bar Fausto (which made our list of the ten best in town) — this venue from neighborhood veterans Jonathan Power and Koan Goedman offers a menu of bites simple enough that…
Ohana Island Kitchen, the Hawaiian lunch window in Highland that serves poké bowls, bento boxes and spam musabi from a walk-up window on the side of the Truffle Table, will soon have a storefront of its own. Due to an increase in demand and the fact that Ohana owners Louie…
Fall is in the air, and with it comes changes and new menus from Denver chefs. This week brings lunch hours and hearty lunch dishes from Avelina, a new jazz-inspired tasting menu from Nocturne and some restaurant-quality dishes designed by chef Frank Bonanno for delivery service Supperbell. Avelina 1550 17th…
No. 56: Macaroni and Cheese at Work & Class Upon first bite there was something about chef Dana Rodriguez’s addictive macaroni and cheese that just tasted different, in a good way. Turns out it’s more than one thing that makes this lauded chef’s pale yellow-orange version stand out, and six-year-aged…
Hanan Chthieer has done harder things than push a line of shopping carts up an incline through an obstacle course of a parking lot — like flee Iraq in fear for her life, for example. But now this is her job, and it’s difficult. The wheel on one of the…
How do you turn a time-worn breakfast joint into a brand-new Puerto Rican restaurant in just under a month? You do the work yourself — which is exactly what Alex Rivera, owner of El Coquí D’Aquí, did. Taking the food-truck concept that he originally launched in 2011, Rivera and his wife,…
The luck of the Irish has been running low of late as several Irish pubs have shuttered this year. The latest is Conor O’Neill’s Irish Pub at 1922 13th Street in Boulder, which will close permanently on Sunday, October 2, after seventeen years in business. The Boulder longtimer posted this…
For the month of September, twenty chefs around town have been challenging each other to sell weekend specials made with unusual ingredients as part of the Culinary Cricket Challenge. Sales of each dish have gone directly toward funding food skills and nutrition education programs at Cooking Matters Colorado, which is…
“Colorado barbecue” are two words that just don’t go together, according to many smoked-meat enthusiasts. This state lacks the tradition, they explain, arguing that all of the barbecue in Colorado is inspired by barbecue from somewhere else. But as Mark Antonation notes, there’s a small group of chefs attempting to put…
On paper, Steve Fenberg, Rob DuRay, Casey Berry and Sam Alviani look like an unlikely coalition of bar owners. Fenberg and DuRay are nonprofit and politics guys. Boulderite Fenberg is currently running for state Senate; a decade ago he launched progressive political organization New Era Colorado, where he met DuRay,…
Another Westword DISH is in the books — and this, our 22nd, was a great one. The Colorado fall weather cooperated for our annual celebration of the city’s restaurant scene, making for a cool, sunny day as dozens of Denver’s top eateries put out their best for the crowd. The…
No. 58: Griddle Cooked Bullfrog at Yum Yum Spice Skip the sizable menu of pedestrian Chinese-American offerings at Yum Yum Spice and head straight for what makes this DU strip mall joint special: a collection of dry-pot hot pots, listed as “griddle cooked foods,” which will give you a glimpse…
Alarms sounded, overhead sprinklers went off and customers of businesses at the Lowenstein Theater complex at 2526 East Colfax Avenue were evacuated on Friday night as the Denver Fire Department responded to a kitchen fire at The Goods, which had just opened on September 16 in the space formerly occupied…
The long-awaited Denver Central Market officially opens today at 2669 Larimer Street, with eleven vendors purveying foodstuffs — from produce to fresh seafood to complete meals you can eat on-site. You can grab drinks, too. Developer Ken Wolfe, who’s lived in the RiNo neighborhood for years, partnered with restaurateur Jeff Osaka…
There’s only a day left until Westword’s DISH, our annual celebration of the Denver dining scene, which returns Sunday, September 25, for its 22nd year. The festival of food will take over Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, where dozens of local restaurants will offer samples of their best dishes — along…
Gretchen Kurtz just reviewed Spatola Ristorante & Wine Bar, which took over the former home of Julia Blackbird’s at 3434 West 32nd Avenue a few months ago. Although she’d been impressed when she interviewed owner/chef Francisco Spatola for Chef and Tell in August, she was disappointed that his presence wasn’t felt more at…
This week was marked by the announced closings of two of Denver’s favorite bars: the Campus Lounge on South University, and the Celtic Tavern (along with the attached Delaney’s Pub) in LoDo. Both will have send-offs this weekend before locking the doors. And both could return soon in some form…
If you’re trying to live by the motto “sing like there’s nobody listening,” Voicebox, a new private-suite karoake bar that opens today at 4 p.m. at 2601 Walnut Street, is just what you’ve been waiting for to unleash your inner Adele or Eddie Vedder. Voicebox comes to Denver from Portland,…
Adrian Miller knows his soul food and barbecue. He’s an accredited barbecue judge and author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, so he doesn’t just eat soul food, he studies its history, travels the country talking to professional and home cooks, and…
There are only two more days until Westword’s DISH, our annual celebration of the Denver dining scene, which returns Sunday, September 25, for its 22nd year. The festival of food will take over Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, where dozens of local restaurants will offer samples of their best dishes, including…
