Here’s a formula you wouldn’t think would work for a bakery in the middle of downtown Denver: Customers enter at one end of a shop, drop a dollar into a giant plastic jug, retrieve a small paper bag filled with three fresh-from-the-oven cookies and exit out the other end. There’s no…
“This is the perfect hearty recipe to help warm your body from the chill in the air,” says Lance Barto, the executive chef of Strings and the subject of this week’s Chef and Tell interview…
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. No. 98 Mac-and-cheese fries from Jonesy’s EatBar…
Paul Piciocchi has had his hands full this fall, turning the former Alto space at 1320 15th Street into not one, but three venues — and also running his other popular Denver club, Tryst, at 1512 Larimer Street, right up the street from his new project. A third of that…
Does reading this blog make you hunger to write? Westword is expanding its Cafe Society coverage, and we’re looking for a great freelance writer with a passion for food and restaurants, as well as the ability to produce stylish and knowledgeable news and opinion pieces about the Denver dining scene…
Steelhead trout, beautiful beets just yanked from the garden, greens and risotto. Half of the dish — the trout and the beets — was spot-on perfect, while the second half — a gummy risotto that had turned to mush and the wilted weeds, which were gritty and intertwined with the…
The only thing better than a fabulous food scene on the big screen is a scene involving brutal, unabashed violence (True Romance, or anything Tarantino for that matter), or a fantastic food moment involving sex (9 1/2 Weeks, for example). But while some culinary scenes will leave you yearning to…
846 Broadway has been a lot of things over the years. Failed restaurants have come and gone; bars have landed here, done well for a little bit, then died. I’ve spent time at every one of 846 Broadway’s incarnations over the past seven years and, with the exception of their…
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. No. 99 Alaskan reindeer sausage from Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs…
Yes, yesterday’s Guess Where I’m Eating? cakes were from City Bakery, Michael Bortz’s place up at 5454 Washington Street, an industrial-park setting that gives no hint of the wonderful things being created inside. Except for the smell, of course. Although Bortz breads and desserts are featured at many restaurants around…
This is part two of my interview with Lance Barto, exec chef of Strings. You can read part one of my interview with Barto here. Best food city in America: Northern California. Right, I know that it’s not a city, but the whole northern region of California seems to have…
John Hickenlooper will announce the Mayor’s Design Awards tonight, but we can tell you that two of the fifteen honorees are restaurants: Root Down and Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizzeria. Both restaurants opened last year, in old spaces made remarkably new. In Root Down’s case, a vintage service station was turned into…
On my first visit to Fogo de Chão, I was like Augustus Gloop in the chocolate factory — set loose in Wonka’s main room, eyes like saucers, jittery with excitement and trying desperately to shove everything into my mouth that would fit. And each time I half-cleaned a plate, some…
This week’s review of Fogo de Chão contains one important bit of wisdom: No man can live solely on giant hunks of skewered meat delivered by strapping young Brazilian men. Trust me, if it could be done, I’d already be doing it. As would my darling wife, in a heartbeat…
For some of us (like me), there just aren’t enough hours in the day to eat all the barbecue that we want. There are barbecue sandwiches for lunch, pulled pork for dinner, ribs and sides for a midnight snack, maybe a little cornbread and chicken picked off the bone at…
I just got the news twenty minutes ago. Ian Kleinman buzzed my cell shortly after. “So, you’re unemployed, brother,” I said. “Congratulations, I guess.” “Yeah, well, not completely unemployed,” Ian said, laughing. “But yeah.” Yesterday, Ian was let go from his gig as chef and chief liquid nitrogen wrangler at…
You can have your pecan pumpkin coffeecake and eat it, too, if you stop by this bakery. Maple walnut coffeecake, too. And pecan hazelnut tart. Guess where we’d be eating all day and night if we got the chance……
As I reported here yesterday, Arizona restaurateur Mark Tarbell is just a few weeks away from opening Home, a comfort food restaurant that will join The Oven, another Tarbell restaurant, at the Streets of SouthGlenn in late November. And while that’s good news for the foodniks who hang in those…
I’ve never met a charcuterie plate I didn’t love. Not that this will surprise anyone, but the spread of salty meats and cheeses (and housemade breadsticks) in the above pic did absolutely nothing to change my mind. Which restaurant is to blame for furthering my addiction?…
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. No. 100 Chicken-fried steak from Lola…
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast,” says Lance Barto, shaking his head. The 27-year-old chef, who was promoted back in February to the chief kitchen post at Strings following the departure of Aaron Whitcomb (who’s now at Yia-Yia’s Euro Bistro), still seems shocked by the news. “A lot of…
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…
