Smashburger, our locally born and quickly proliferating burger chain, is taking its wares to the small screen with its first-ever television ads. One thirty-second spot, created by Denver-based Definite Productions, is a burger-fan dream sequence, reportedly complete with actual beef patty-smashing action meant to demonstrate the differences between Smashburger’s hand-smashed…
Oak at Fourteenth is a very good restaurant, and it earned raves from Gretchen Kurtz in her review this week. But even a very good restaurant can have very big problems with no-shows, as co-owner Bryan Dayton learned last month when several large parties failed to arrive on a weekend…
For a guy who doesn’t like drama, Bryan Dayton, a nationally-recognized bartender, sure knows how to set the stage. On graduation weekend last month the Oak at Fourteenth co-owner found himself facing a restaurant with lots of empty seats — even though the place had been booked solid. And Oak…
Beast + Bottle opened this spring with “approachable nose to tail” fare from executive chef/owner Paul Reilly and a smart bar menu. But the restaurant’s best-seller is actually the last item on the dessert menu, the Chocolate Dacquiose. Pastry chef Andrea Wight has modeled it after a Reese’s Peanut Butter…
The season premiere of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters will hit televisions on Wednesday, July 24, and among the contestants battling for $100,000 in prize money — money that will benefit a charity of the winning chef’s choice — is Jennifer Jasinski, exec chef and owner of Rioja, Euclid Hall and…
A few years ago, Pink Tank’s David Mueller was working sales, doing well and able to pay all of his bills — but he wasn’t satisfied. “I was really unhappy not spending time with my family, so I decided to get out of sales and start a business,” he explains…
A burger with fries is an indulgence that I try to stay away from, but every so often, the urge just hits, as it did last weekend, and while this is a joint where you can get your burger topped with just about everything the burger gods are willing to…
Duy Pham Epernay 1080 14th Street 303-573-5000 This is part two of my interview with Duy Pham, exec chef of Epernay; part one of our chat ran yesterday. What’s the best food- or kitchen-related gift you’ve been given? I have three. The first is when Corky Douglass, the owner of…
Buffalo Doughboy won the Best Bakery award in the Best of Denver 2010. Business boomed, and in April 2012 the bakery moved out of its tiny spot in a Victorian home off Broadway for a space three times as large, and a mile south on Broadway itself. But business in…
Mark Antonation has been eating his way up Federal Boulevard in A Federal Case, and yesterday he reached Pho Duy, the third spot in Denver’s trio of terrific noodle joints in one strip mall. You’d think that would be enough for some people…but no. See also: – Pho Duy: round…
We have a history, Oak at Fourteenth and I. It’s not of the salacious, I-dated-someone-in-the-kitchen variety, but of the professional sort: I’ve reviewed the restaurant before. I did so at the now-defunct Denver Magazine in the weeks after Oak opened in November 2010, during what co-owners Bryan Dayton and Steven…
The Hawt Dog & Sausage Eatery originally opened in Cherry Creek North in January 2012. Its claim to fame was an elaborate take on a traditionally uninteresting tubular food (hot dogs and sausages), but that wasn’t enough to keep the place open. It closed last November. But last month there…
Squeaky Bean won’t turn one until later this month, but already the restaurant has given LoDo a couple of presents: an outdoor patio with seating for sixteen, and a new happy hour that starts at 4 p.m. (an hour earlier than the restaurant used to open) and runs until 6…
Last night at Green Russell, six local bartenders — Joe Hines (Williams & Graham); Kevin Burke (Colt & Gray); Gerard Collier (Corner House); Ragen Horacek (Ace); Randy Layman (Steuben’s); and host Adam Hodak, the star bartender of Bonanno Concepts — battled for supremacy in the Colorado Wine Cocktail Celebration competition,…
How far does she go? You’ll have to tune into Bravo beginning on Wednesday, July 24 to see whether or not Jennifer Jasinski, executive chef of Rioja, makes it all the way on Top Chef Masters. Jasinski, who just won the Best Chef Southwest James Beard Foundation award — and…
Duy Pham Epernay 1080 14th Street 303-573-5000 This is part one of my interview with Duy Pham, exec chef of Epernay; part two of our chat will run tomorrow. epernaylounge.com We’re boat people,” chuckles Duy Pham — but he’s dead serious. Born in Saigon, Pham snuck out of Vietnam with…
In A Federal Case, I’ll be eating my way up Federal Boulevard — south to north — within Denver city limits. I’ll be skipping the national chains and per-scoop Chinese joints, but otherwise I’ll report from every vinyl booth, walk-up window and bar stool where food is served. Here’s the…
Pizza joints are popping up along Broadway, which lost a couple of Mexican mainstays last month. Although Adelita’s Cocina y Cantina opened a few weeks ago at 1294 South Broadway, that’s still a mile south of where Juanita’s and El Diablo closed their doors. Will the opening of a sixth…
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a pig splayed across a state in all its fleshy glory. Or even the second or third. My fascination with pigs — and with butchery — extends over several years, but while I’ve witnessed numerous butchers, their starched aprons splashed with blood, their…
Pizzeria Locale wasn’t the only new pizza joint to open on Broadway last week. Also opening on May 29, and just six blocks down Broadway: Pie Hole — no relation to the joint of the same name that lasted for about a minute in the alley behind Larimer Square five…
Despite a disappointing cocktail list that shoves little more than vodka down the throats of imbibers, the recently revamped menu at this suburban watering hole and restaurant is far better than than it’s been in the past, and the kitchen doesn’t balk when you want your meat on the crimson…
Recognizing the decline in small, local bookstores, Nicole Sullivan realized she’d have to do something new when she took over the space at 4280 Tennyson Street that had recently been vacated by a bookstore. The result? BookBar, a spot that not only sells books, but serves coffee, beer and wine,…
