Either they’re uptight about wearing pajamas in public, or that salmon was the last friend they had, because the guys behind sushi bars rarely smile. They solemnly wield their knives like sculpting tools, quietly creating works of art and then handing them over like so much dead fish. But then…
Good things come in small packages. And truly exceptional things are coming out of a tiny, nine-table restaurant in northwest Denver. Reservations have been a must almost from the moment the clumsily titled Today’s Gourmet Highland’s Garden Cafe opened seven months ago. Its modest size was only part of the…
My husband was born in the United States, but trust me–that doesn’t make him qualified to open an American restaurant in another country. Yet many restaurateurs who move here would have you believe that the only credential they need to establish a credible kitchen is a birth certificate from a…
The north Boulder neighborhood has always seemed slightly out of step, a modest Fifties enclave in a town that’s otherwise consciously–and constantly–at the cutting edge. But the area took a great leap forward with the update of the North Broadway Shops and the adjacent Community Plaza. The design company on…
Although I’ve done time in several major cities, I’d never before encountered the number of so-called Mexican restaurants I found in Denver. Miami certainly has more than its fair share, but at least in that city the repertoire stretches far beyond the standard beans and rice. Sure, you’ll find those…
It’s a brilliant concept: Let diners cook their own food. Not only does the restaurant save the cost of a grill man, but it also erases any annoying misconceptions about how long it takes food to cook–and how fast a kitchen should work. The idea is not exactly new, though…
My family was always known for its progressive thinking, but never more so than on New Year’s Eve. Every year, instead of driving downtown and getting drunk, we stayed close to home and got drunk. This happened during the annual progressive dinner, a tradition that originated in Britain but took…
It’s that time of year when your company, which is filled with employees who normally can’t stand each other, hosts a festive luncheon outside the office where those same employees can overindulge and exchange such enchanting, thoughtful gifts as coffee mugs shaped like breasts or cows. It’s also that time…
This is the way many of my conversations with owners of small Asian restaurants start out: “Hi, this is Kyle Wagner from Westword newspaper. I have visited your restaurant and would like to ask a few questions for the review.” “Newspaper? We don’t have advertisement.” “No, I’m not selling advertising…
Only the rigors of founding a new nation could have kept infamous foodie Thomas Jefferson from doing what one out of every four restaurateurs in this country (and what seems like one out of every two in this city) feels compelled to do: open an Italian restaurant. In fact, Jefferson…
Living out in the boonies has its advantages: There’s no pollution (we see Denver’s brown cloud from a healthy distance), people shoot each other only after they’ve listened to too much country/ western music, and you can run around the house naked, because the neighbors are too far away to…
For fifty years Dolcamino’s held forth in a South University storefront, cooking up big batches of pasta and red sauce for hungry students and other locals. Then the Coos Bay Bistro moved in–and suddenly the street is flooded with folks from all over town hungry for the restaurant’s excellent Italian-based,…
If the first rule of creating a successful restaurant is location, location, location, the second is to come up with a marketable menu. Ogden Cafe owners Jin and Mercy Lee had the location thing locked when they settled into the old home of Footers, located in the heart of Capitol…
If the dinosaurs had known ahead of time that all they needed to stave off extinction was a fresh, up-and-coming chef and a revamped menu, they would have put an ad in the Cretaceous Times posthaste. The Normandy didn’t have to go that far, however. Pierre Wolfe, owner of the…
Without Chinese takeout, the falling-in-love scenes in movies just wouldn’t be the same. First, there’s the montage of the couple walking around the city, her in an oversized shirt, him in high-top sneakers; they’re just getting to know each other. Then they stand by whatever body of water is near…
Barbecue was once the province of the poor, an inexpensive way to entertain. Three days before the big party, the host would drop the pig into a smoldering pit. By the time guests started arriving for the festivities, the meat was dripping off the bone. As the smell of barbecue…
The owners of Greens restaurant have a few things to say about the importance of location. “Don’t underestimate it,” says Michael Nolting, speaking for himself as well as for wife Clare and Greens’ chef, Hugh O’Neill. “We now know that the incantation `location, location, location’ is the absolute truth.” And…
Restaurateurs keep stampeding into LoDo–but frankly, the joints already there are starting to run together. They attempt to offer the newest, the hippest and the hottest, but instead of a wide range of choices, we all seem to be dining at cadiranchchampbrewfirewazkoophousegrill, ordering brewchew (overpriced food that goes well with…
Blessedly spared from Catholic schooling by a mother forced to convert long before Vatican II, I nonetheless endured the rigors of CCD (that’s Catholic Sunday school to the lay folk), with its ruler-wielding nuns and interminably long prayers. One Sunday Sister Agnes didn’t appear at class, and half an hour…
There’s nothing like having a child of your own to give the phrase “family-style dining” real meaning. Finding restaurants that are kid-friendly is only slightly more difficult than finding restaurants that are happy to have you pay your bill with Monopoly money. Enter Armando’s Trattoria, which not only calls itself…
If there are people somewhere on the face of the earth who don’t know about The Fort, it’s not because Sam Arnold hasn’t tried to reach them. A shameless promoter who hawks his Morrison restaurant like a culinary snake-oil salesman, Arnold has made this replica of a southwestern trading post…
The cash-poor college years can push many people to extremes. So it was only slightly surprising when, during a budget-minded trip to Pizza Hut, my then-boyfriend accepted a dare to down the entire contents of a shaker full of cracked red pepper. The stakes: $50–but he probably would have done…
