Mellow Mushroom to open at Tabor Center

Mellow Mushroom outlets are popping up like, well, mushrooms. Another outlet of the Georgia-based pizza chain is slated to open next June in the Tabor Center, joining a line-up that already includes the Cheesecake Factory, Green Fine Salad, Corner Bakery and Ling & Louie’s. There are over a hundred Mellow…

Guess where I’m eating?

You want to talk about bad food photography? This is bad food photography — mostly because there’s just no good way to make a lump of meat and cheese like this look tasty until someone invents Smell-O-Vision or scratch-and-sniff websites. Still, buried in the middle of this photographic nightmare are…

Argyll’s Sergio Romero, under the lights

Before I ever ate at Argyll, I was worried about the place. I worried about the space that Argyll occupies (the ex-Squealing Pig location in Cherry Creek) and the guy running the show (Robert Thompson, ex of Brasserie Rouge). I worried that it was calling itself a gastropub, a word…

What’s cooking: Pete Marczyk makes chocolate chunk pecan pie

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. Last month, Pete…

Steuben’s going mobile

After I chatted yesterday with Josh Wolkon of Steuben’s and Vesta, he kindly forwarded me an article from the travel section of the Los Angeles Times about the sudden, fierce boom in food trucks that has gripped the foodie Shangri La of Portland. That city now has about 400 trucks,…

Chef and Tell with James Rugile of Venue

Head down 32nd Avenue in Highland, and you’re likely to find 25-year-old James Rugile in the kitchen at Venue, turning out some of the most incredibly delicious food in Denver (if you haven’t tried Rugile’s shrimp and grits, go now). The studious young chef, who grew up in Basalt and…

Il Posto now serving lunch

Last month, chef/owner Andrea Frizzi told Jason Sheehan that he’d soon be serving lunch at Il Posto, his excellent Italian restaurant at 2011 East 17th Avenue. And now he’s made good on that promise: Il Posto opened for lunch this week. It could be just the place to get an…

Argyll goes gastropubbin’

It worried me that Argyll is located in a subterranean address in Cherry Creek — which seems to almost always doom any restaurant to a slow, lingering death. It worried me that this particular subterranean address used to be the home of the Squealing Pig: a terrible excuse for an…

Short-lived Grazio Italian Grill & Bar to become Blue Rox Grill

The website doesn’t give away any clues, but the very visible public notice sign is plunged deep into the dirt in front of the former Grazio Italian Grill & Bar space at 9271 Park Meadows Drive. According to the wooden post, that restaurant, which lasted about as long as a…

Ask The Critic: What’s on your bookshelf?

I tore through Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, Eating Animals, and then sat back and watched the weak-willed and easily influenced suddenly declare their vegetarian sovereignty with a blood-streaked smile on my face and a bloody rare cheeseburger in my hand. Novella Carpenter’s Farm City was one of the best food…

Guess where I’m eating?

Talk about a warming trend! We’re heading into the holiday season, a time of red and green chile cheeseburgers. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Every Friday, anyone who gave the first correct answer to any of the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts will be entered in…

Canned pumpkin becomes an endangered species this holiday season

Is this the apocalypse or what? Last week, Eggo devastated Jason Sheehan, school children and bachelors everywhere by reporting that a massive waffle shortage was taking place. And now Libby’s and Nestle have put the kibosh on their canned pumpkin production for the rest of the year. That’s right. No…

100 Favorite Dishes: Burrata from Osteria Marco

As a countdown to the Best of Denver 2010, coming April 1, Cafe Society is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in Denver. Send your own nominations to cafe@westword.com. Number 91: Burrata from Osteria Marco…

Restaurant Kevin Taylor snags Denver’s only Forbes Four Star rating

Kevin Taylor’s eponymous restaurant has attained Denver’s first Forbes (formerly Mobil) Travel Guide Four Star rating, making it into the first round of 2010 winners named since the Mobil brand moved to Forbes. The Forbes Travel website describes the insane criteria process for rating hotels, spas and restaurants, which sounds…

Jay Spickelmier out at Jing

Back in September, during the Mile High Chef Competition at Dish-the Westword menu affair, Jay Spickelmier went knife-to-knife against Argyll GastroPub chef Sergio Romero in a spirited battle to see who would saunter away with the Pillsbury Doughboy-esque statue of distinction. At the time, Spickelmier, who emerged victorious, was the…

Mark & Isabella bites the dust

The phone kicks callers over to a cheery-voiced hostess talking about the hours of operation and the happy-hour specials, but take a cruise by the website and the news is very plain, typed out in black against a plain background. “mark & isabella has closed its doors” That’s all there…

Update: Ondo’s opens today

That picture there? That’s what Ondo’s looked like a few weeks ago. The space at 250 Steele Street was still coming together, and even as recently as last week, there was no set menu because no one on staff had actually been able to get into the kitchen to cook…

Perky Cups owner: Just call me Chief Bikini Inspector

Fresh off the breasts heels of last Friday’s news that Perky Cups has opened in Aurora, at 12101 East Iliff Avenue, comes Perky Cups owner and self-described Chief Bikini Inspector, Jason Bernal, mouthing off for the cameras, while his bikini-clad buttercups awkwardly reassure Barbara Bush types that all is well…

Say adios to Tosh’s Cantina

Bummer. Tosh’s Cantina, which opened in March in Marina Square, at 8101 East Belleview Avenue, has gone dark and empty, which, to be frank, isn’t even slightly surprising considering the off-any-beaten-path location which — let’s face it — utterly and completely sucked. Still, it’s sad to see it shuttered, especially…