The Master plan: When Mel and Jane Master sold almost all of their interest in Bruno’s to Tom Mirabito (see review above), they got Bruno’s chef Frank Bonanno out of the deal and moved him over to Mel’s Bar and Grill, at 235 Fillmore Street, where he joined Tyler Wiard,…
One of my litmus tests of an American-Italian restaurant is its Caesar–even though the salad was actually invented in Mexico (albeit by an Italian) and worked its way across the border without ever going overseas. Ten years ago you couldn’t find a Caesar on most Italian menus here–much less in…
What native cuisine has been as bastardized in this country as Chinese food? Mexican, of course. One Coloradan remembers having her first through tenth margaritas–yes, in the same night–at the Riviera, an outpost at 4301 East Kentucky Avenue that’s served up some of southeast Denver’s best Mexican food for decades…
At first the food at Little Ollie’s tasted bland. By my second meal there, though, I started noticing a few flavors, albeit unfamiliar ones. Wait. Was that what broccoli tastes like? Was that what snow peas taste like? Ahhhhh. This was fresh food cooked true Chinese style, without the Americanized…
Trick or treat?: Don’t be scared off by the chair problems at Vesta Dipping Grill (see review, this page), and do drop by on October 31, when in addition to the regular menu, three courses of theme cuisine (roasted-pumpkin creme brulee, for example) will be available for $30 per person…
Poor Josh Wolkon. This past summer the 26-year-old former Bostonian finally opened his own restaurant, after years of envisioning a grill with no pretentious “e” on the end, a place where people could have it their way–selecting sauces to match their entrees–in the midst of architectural splendor, with live music…
Lunch bunch: I took a lot of grief for my critique of the Laughing Dog Deli, at 1925 Blake Street, last year (Mouthing Off, March 14, 1996) because my negative review was based solely on problems I had had with delivery orders. Well, I’ve now eaten in the Dog five…
Eavesdrop on the average downtown office conversation around noon and you’ll probably hear the question “Do you wanna go out for lunch?” almost invariably followed by, “Where should we go?” Then a discussion of the possibilities ensues, at the end of which everyone agrees to go to the same place…
What’s in a name? Well, for a Boulder restaurant trying to overcome the bad taste left by a previous ownership, a new name could mean the difference between the business’s life and death. Until last week, that restaurant’s name was Diva, bestowed on it when chef Marietta Sisca opened the…
The egg and I: As the metro area slo-o-o-wly gains more first-rate restaurants like 15 Degrees and food a little less slowly surpasses sports in popularity–hey, we’re not being asked to fork over $180 million to build Pat Bowlen a new restaurant–we occasionally get a taste of what’s hot in…
Instead of bringing more chain steakhouses to Denver, why don’t we concentrate on wooing a few more original chefs to help put us on the culinary map? Once again, we’ve been snubbed by a food magazine–this time the October Gourmet, which completely deleted Denver from competition in its second annual…
Some dead guy once said (before he died) that “great eaters of meat are in general more cruel and ferocious than other men.” So it was fitting that three journalists and two music-industry insiders gathered one recent night to consume as much meat as possible at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle…
The Cherry Creek Shopping Center was still a twinkle in a developer’s eye when Adde Bjorklund and his wife, Halleh Hessami, and their partners at the time, Brewster and Carol Hanson, decided the basement space in a plaza off Steele Street might be a good spot for their first restaurant…
Sonny daze: Rando “Sonny” Santino–saint or sinner? The restaurant industry loves nothing more than a good food fight, and these days the rumblings always return to the owner of Santino’s, at 1939 Blake Street. In one corner are the people who believe the rumors that Sonny is a monster, a…
Retail retort: If you can’t bring yourself to do hard time at Alcatraz Brewing Co. (see Cafe, previous page), Park Meadows proper offers another haven for beer drinkers–Nordstrom Pub, conveniently located directly behind the men’s department at Nordstrom. The warm, comfortable pub doesn’t brew its own beer, but it does…
The area surrounding the “retail resort” of Park Meadows has sprouted buildings like so many landscape pimples over the past year. And each time one of them erupted into a restaurant, the dining-starved residents of the south burbs flocked to it like frat boys to a kegger. In this microbrew-obsessed…
When four Park Hill families didn’t like what was happening in their neighborhood, they decided to band together and do something about it. But it wasn’t crime they were fighting, or drugs, bums or slums–it was the lack of a good neighborhood restaurant. And so, after many months of backyard…
Alcohol rub: When the Cherry Tomato (see review, previous page) applied for a liquor license right after the place opened last spring, the owners were bombarded with letters from neighborhood people purporting to oppose the application. At the hearing, though, only 30 people showed up to fight the license, while…
As Denver’s restaurant industry has fattened over the past decade, business at the old favorites has thinned. Almost forgotten in the face of fresh Mexican grills and pseudo-tapas bars, these longtime standbys somehow keep things cooking. Don Quijote is one such blast from the past, one of those restaurants that,…
South of the border patrol: When I visit decent places like Don Quijote (see review above), I realize there’s no excuse for serving lousy Mexican food. Since the ingredients for most Mexican dishes are inherently cheap, the difference comes down to a willingness to take the extra step involved in…
Get to the Points: Kal’line’s owners aside, not everyone is enthusiastic about the promotional work being done by the Five Points Business Association and the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development (MOED). “I’m going to tell you my truly and honest position,” says George Brown, whose Brown Sugar’s Burgers and Bones…
Rebuild it, and they will come. At least that’s what Willy, John and Mac Watts are counting on in Five Points, where their year-old Kal’line’s Cafe has slowly been building a following of Denverites who appreciate good soul and American cooking. Kal’line’s is named for the Watts brothers’ mother, Caroline…
