Years ago, when I was reviewing restaurants for another publication, I called Carbondale, a hamlet that’s down valley from Aspen, a “lowdown trucker town,” a comment that set the mountain town into a tailspin. At the time, however, Carbondale’s restaurant landscape was completely overshadowed — justly — by the glitter-gulch…
In the Best of Denver 2011, we named Common Grounds the Best Coffeehouse for Finding a Date, thanks to the constant crowd of young professionals who mingle there over cappuccinos. And because we’re big proponents of ditching online dating and blind set-ups every now and then in favor of meeting…
Ghost Plate & Tap, the latest venture by the Wynkoop/Breckenridge group, just opened this afternoon in the former home of the Rocky Mountain Diner, and is pouring 23 craft beers — or will, once they’re all in place. But in the meantime, the bar is open — and it sounds…
Don’t mess with spuds. That was the message sent out yesterday by the Denver-based United States Potato Board, in response to a study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine that states potatoes make your body resemble Mr. Potato Head. In one of the more unintentionally amusing press…
“It’s a Mexican coffee house. Like a bakery and cafe, but Mexican style,” says Adriana Cendejas of Tenoch Mexican Coffee House, the spot she opened with her brother near just two weeks ago. The pair comes from Mexico City, and they cribbed the name Tenoch from Tenochtitlán, the Aztec name…
In this week’s Chef and Tell interview, Mark Monette, the executive chef/partner of the Flagstaff House, sounds off on sharing kitchen space with Thomas Keller, turning fifty and doing double duty at two top drawer restaurants, which keeps him firmly entrenched in the kitchen. He took some away from the…
It’s fig season, and that means that restaurant menus all over the city are pimping the sweet, fleshy fruit. Here, where the above snap was flashed, the figs are enlivened with Gorgonzola and sheeted in prosciutto. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct…
We all have super-secret snacks that taste straight righteous to us, but would send other people scampering to discharge their tummy floaters into the nearest lavatory. Munchies so bizarre and immoral that a food writer hobnobbing with the gentry, sipping champagne and spearing delicate bits of seared ahi dipped in…
Mark Monette has been interested in food since he ate pounds of pancakes at the Boulder Village Inn that his father managed in the ’60s. Although his culinary training took him far afield, he ultimately returned to Boulder to run the kitchen at the Flagstaff House, which his family had…
In the 1960s, Boulder’s Greenbriar Inn transformed a building that dated back to1873 into a restaurant, a spot near Lefthand Canyon that attracted wedding parties and special-occasion celebrations with an ostentatious menu of now-dated, then-staples of fine dining, mostly heavily sauced dishes prepared tableside. The eatery has evolved since then,…
Several months ago, Peter and Mara Soutiere nabbed the tiny hallway space behind their Pearl Street-facing restaurant, Tahona Tequila Bistro, and began drawing up plans for an intimate restaurant that would share a kitchen with Tahona. At that time, the couple was still finessing plans and unwilling to divulge details…
Nearly three years ago, in July of 2008, the original Chinook Tavern, one of Denver’s only German restaurants, shuttered in Cherry Creek, and while the family who owns Chinook — manager Clemens Georg, executive chef Markus Georg, patriarch Manfred Georg, and matriarch Lieselotte Georg — had secured a new parcel…
I’m definitely a bread head, but for the love of loaves, there’s absolutely no reason to suffocate an otherwise decent breakfast sandwich with enough bread to wallpaper the walls. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I…
Mark Monette Flagstaff House 1138 Flagstaff Drive, Boulder 303-442-4640 www.flagstaffhouse.com This is part two of my interview with Mark Monette, executive chef of the Flagstaff House. Part one of that interview, in which Monette talks about cooking with Thomas Keller and his disdain for duck tongues, ran yesterday. Culinary inspirations:…
Zi Fusion seemed to suffer from an identity crisis from the start. It was originally going to open last fall as Zi Cuisine — but that sounded dangerously close to Z Cuisine, Patrick Dupay’s popular French restaurant in Highland. So Zi Cuisine quickly changed its name to Zi Fusion, which…
Brussel sprouts and bacon is a dish that may have worn out its welcome, as Lori Midson suggests in this Guess where I’m eating? post, but the Guess where? games she serves up every day still attract plenty of players — and wise-ass comments, like this one from dmc: But…
Plans have been in the works for a Bubba Chinos to move into the old Fanny’s flower store on East Colfax since late last year, when Leonard Cordova’s expanding empire picked up the lease on the location. After a paint job and patio renovation, the place finally opened this month…
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. Yesterday was the…
Being a vegetarian or vegan sometimes means you’re not always sure whether something like Civic Center Eats is a good plan for lunch. Sure, there will be dozens of selections — but how many of those cater to a vegetarian palate? Plenty, as it turns out. When we visited the…
The former space that used to house Satchel’s Market (which relocated to Sixth Avenue and Gilpin and is now Satchel’s on 6th) has undergone a transformation over the past few months, as catering company owner Pam Read and her business partner, Gary Fink, put together Pary’s on 28th, a new…
I love a plate of fresh waffles to start the day, and now that the joint that makes them has added eggs, bacon and a side of fruit to make it a square meal, it’s more than enough fuel to sustain me throughout the entire day. Can you guess where…
Mark Monette Flagstaff House 1138 Flagstaff Drive, Boulder 303-442-4640 www.flagstaffhouse.com This is part one of my interview with Mark Monette, executive chef of the Flagstaff House. Part two of my chat with Monette will run in this space tomorrow. While Boulder today is renowned for its culinary scene, back in…
