My first meal of 2012 was here, at this Chinese restaurant, where a bunch of us gather every year to dish about the Denver culinary scene. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts is…
Cafe Society dished up four Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a vile plate of chile rellenos from a still-unidentified, seedy restaurant in Commerce City to a panang curry with frozen peas to a cocktail at a splashy new restaurant in the Rocky Mountains. For identifying that cocktail as…
Jesus, it’s only day three of the new year, and already, in the span of one weekend, three restaurants have shuttered on South Pearl Street. After 29 years, the venerable Pearl Street Grill locked its doors after service on Friday night, India’s Pearl stopped slinging curries after New Year’s Eve…
Close to 300 new restaurants opened in the metro area in 2011 — by our count, at least, which you can see when our Restaurant roll call for 2011 is posted here later today. When Laura Shunk narrowed that big list down to the ten best new restaurants of last…
On my first visit to Cafe|Bar, I spent an inordinate amount of time making plans for art projects. I’m not much of a DIY-er, but just about every decor item in the place gave me an idea for my own home. “How do you think they made those ornaments?” I…
There’s always a lot of action at the end of the year, and 2011 was no exception: After last call early on December 31, the Pearl Street Grill closed its doors, after almost thirty years in business. The Pearl isn’t gone for good, though. It will reopen in 2012 –…
By 5 p.m., Pearl Street Grill, the iconic watering hole on South Pearl Street, was jammed with imbibers clinking pints of porter, embracing friends and lamenting the closure of one of Platt Park’s oldest neighborhood gathering spots. At 2 a.m., after last call, Pearl Street Grill will lock its doors…
Including this post, the total number of posts on Cafe Society in 2011 was 3,241. That’s a lot of bloggering for a local restaurant scene blog. And who has time to go through all of them? Certainly not you. Which is why we’ve tallied up the top ten posts –…
As the year draws to a close, I look back fondly at the breast, er, best restaurant that I had the pleasure of visiting in 2011. Twin Peaks opened last month just outside of Colorado Mills, and it’s a worthy adversary to Denver’s already established breastaurants, Hooters and Tilted Kilt…
It’s a new year, and 2012 should be another rich, full year of food, drink and, with any luck, a few more naked photos of Anthony Bourdain. It’s time to kick 2011 in the gnocchi and usher in a brand-new 365 days of fresh foodie resolutions. We all know that…
It’s been open for exactly 25 days — an infant — but Trillium, Ryan Leinonen’s Scandinavian restaurant in the Ballpark neighborhood, has already found its way onto one coveted roster — namely our “Ten Best New Restaurants in Denver” listacle. And tomorrow night, on New Year’s Eve, one Cafe Society…
Bradford Heap, owner of Boulder’s Salt and Niwot’s Colterra, has had a busy end of the year. Not only has he been drawing up plans to launch a distillery with his bar manager, Evan Faber, he’s also launched a catering business — Bradford Heap Catering — that’s about to kick…
Of all the Mexican meals I had this past year — and there were dozens of them — this was by far the worst. Worse than Blue Bonnet, worse than anything you can possibly imagine. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer…
While a few new restaurants and bars are still scrambling to open before 2012 — and get some business on New Year’s Eve — other longtimers are calling it a night. The last Marie Callender’s restaurant in Colorado closed its doors last weekend, after 21 years at 51 West Dry…
For our Year in Review issue, we rounded up all the answers that Chef and Tell subjects had given when asked what they’d like to see less of in Denver/Boulder from a culinary standpoint:? The recap inspired this from Dave: I wish for less chefs to come off as total…
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. Not that any…
I love fresh peas immensely, but I’m definitely not a fan of frozen peas in a Panang curry. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts is entered into a pool — and every Monday,…
When Trillium, Ryan Leinonen’s highly anticipated Scandinavian restaurant, opened a few weeks ago in the Ballpark neighborhood, the accolades began almost immediately, which was good news for Leinonen. “I want to have one of the top five restaurants in Denver,” he told me during a pre-opening interview. We recently spotted…
As we’ve discovered in our weekly Chef and Tell interviews, Denver’s kitchen commanders are, if nothing else, unapologetically opinionated. We pepper them with dozens of questions, and sometimes their answers are salty — especially their responses to what they’d like to see less of in Denver from a culinary perspective…
A river of alcohol was running through Cafe Society yesterday, with Laura Shunk offering her list of neighborhood liquor stores, Swirl Girl suggesting five bottles of bubbly for New Year’s Eve, and Colorado Beer Man Jonathan Shikes serving up his “ten best Colorado beers of 2011.”…
St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop is a boutique-style gem within walking distance of Mondo Vino and The Denver Bread Company — making Highland Square a convenient stop for gathering party supplies — and it specializes in French, Spanish and Italian cheeses, with a few select Swiss and Dutch wheels, and cheddars…
When Frank and Dina Berta opened Frank’s Kitchen earlier this year, it quickly became part of the neighborhood, integrating into the community and picking up a crowd of regulars that use it as a go-to spot. Frank’s won’t be joining the festivities with its neighbors on New Year’s Eve –…
