Oodles of Noodles: The Best Ramen in Denver and Beyond

Ramen has been commodified. When you can run to the supermarket and buy packets of ramen for under a buck or have access to vendors offering instant ramen in a rainbow of flavors and styles, why go to a restaurant and spend upwards of $20 for the real thing?

Because it’s the real thing, of course.

Or at least, it can be the real thing. Like instant ramen, the versions served in restaurants have been commodified, too, to the point that Yelp lists well over 150 eateries that supposedly offer the dish in Denver. But only a few actually serve legit ramen.

Of the ones that claim to have ramen, some are just trying to make a buck off a culinary fad. Two Colorado restaurants made Yelp’s recent list of top-rated ramen spots across the U.S.: One is a Thai restaurant in Evergreen that doesn’t specialize in ramen at all and the other is Nami Ramen in Englewood, which features a hotate ramen, made with a clam broth and topped with scallops, a mainstay of Japanese seafood. Sadly, this Yelp-approved spot’s soup wasn’t very clam-flavored, and the hotate turned out to be four thin, quarter-sized scallop discs.

That’s why it’s worth searching for the real thing. Among the spots we tried while creating this list was Ramen 303, a small cottage run by a Thai woman who loves Japan and Japanese food, and serves both Thai and ramen. Despite the cultural mash-up that might have given us pause in the past, we found a lot to love about the spicy seafood tom yum, a version of the traditional Thai soup that included ramen noodles. The noodles had just the right bite, and the bowl, unlike that at the Yelp-approved joint, was crowded with hotate scallops, shrimp, steak, squid, mussels, kamaboko fish cake and vegetables. Plus, it was $17.95 versus the other place’s $19.95 hotate ramen.

After a lot of taste-testing, we landed on this list, which includes perennial ramen favorites as well as some new-to-us finds. Here are the top ten ramen joints in the metro area, listed alphabetically:

303 Ramen
5725 Yukon Street, Arvada
The thing about cultural appropriation is that it’s everywhere, and restaurants often disguise themselves as legit purveyors of one cuisine when they’re not really doing it out of love and are just greedy. But some people focus on another culture’s foods out of appreciation, not appropriation, with respect for the culture. That appreciation is easy to feel at 303 Ramen, which is a Thai woman’s love letter to Japanese food, especially ramen. The Thai spicy seafood tom yum spin here is a winner, especially given the generous portions of seafood, and we’re looking forward to trying more from the menu.

Bowl Izakaya
1232 South Hover Street, Longmont
Bowl Izakaya is a third location for a northern Colorado chain with outposts in Greeley and Loveland, both of which serve a variety of Japanese and Chinese dishes. The beef ramen, a rarity at ramen restaurants, includes thin-sliced beef as well as a large beef rib that’s a treat, albeit a messy one — perhaps the kitchen should pull the meat off the bone and serve it with the bone sticking out for show. The soup is a deep, beefy broth, and overall the dish is reminiscent of an oxtail ramen we once enjoyed in a Honolulu bowling alley.

Dragonfly Noodle
1350 16th Street
2014 10th St, Boulder
Chef and owner Edwin Zoe opened the original Zoe Ma Ma in Boulder with his mama, Anna, in 2010; later, they added a location at Union Station that sadly shuttered in 2025. But their legacy lives on in Denver with Dragonfly Noodle, which opened on the 16th Street Mall in 2022 and also has a Boulder outpost. The downtown noodle joint is spacious with a modern vibe and pan-Asian offerings, anchored by handmade ramen noodles with a delightful toothsome firmness. The menu offers several ramen choices, including black tonkotsu, miso and even a high-falutin’ butter lobster ramen. The tonkotsu isn’t traditional, but it is rich and slightly spicy, and infused with sweet marinated mushrooms. Just beware of the easy-to-add extras like a small egg and wakame seaweed, because the costs add up fast on the $17 base price. (The lobster version is listed at $30, but it does look alluring.)

Kokoro
2390 South Colorado Boulevard
5535 Wadsworth Bypass, Arvada
Kokoro has become such a familiar part of Denver’s dining landscape that it’s easy to let it slip your mind. Don’t. For one thing, Kokoro is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this month by offering 40 percent off meals all January long. And for another, although it built its reputation on its hearty, tasty beef bowls, Kokoro also serves a surprisingly good and always reliable bowl of ramen. Miso and shoyu ramen are the two options available, and each comes with the standard slices of chashu pork, but order a side of the beef and put it on top for a blast of extra flavor. You can do the same with the udon noodles (dubbed “splash”) and the yakisoba plates (“sobaghetti”), but with or without the extra beef, Kokoro’s ramen is the perfect comfort food: quick, easy and inexpensive.

Neko Ramen & Rice
4030 Colorado Boulevard
Hidden in a Colorado Boulevard strip mall near I-70, Neko Ramen & Rice was opened in 2023 by Vincent Yu, a chef who’d sharpened his skills in fine dining restaurants but dreamed of opening a ramen shop. Joined by his sister, Joan, a busy kitchen crew and about a thousand maneki-neko (the lucky Japanese cats with the paw held up that are displayed along every wall), Neko brings legit ramen cred to a fast-casual atmosphere — the black garlic ramen is a reliable, satisfying favorite. It’s a bit out of the way, but once you know where it is, you’ll be making pit stops whenever you’re in the area.

Ramen Star
4044 Tejon Street
Chef and owner Takashi Tamai dedicates himself to making the best soup and bowl of ramen, as well as other Japanese dishes. He makes a terrific tonkotsu-style soup with pork and chicken bones simmered for four days, and he’s creative with how they’re served. His standard is the house Ramen Star, served with chashu and familiar ramen toppings; the special ingredient are his noodles, hand-made every morning. A restless chef, he even added a chocolate ramen — which is not a dessert, and is packed with both umami and sweetness, a creation worth trying — and also makes a top-notch truffle ramen. On a recent visit, we tried the corn potage ramen, which is creamy, rich and satisfying.

Sachi Sushi
7980 Niwot Road Market, Niwot
Don’t mistake this Sachi Sushi with the restaurant of the same name in Thornton — that one serves a large menu of Japanese food, but it’s unrelated. Only at the Niwot eatery will you find chef and owner Tsukasa Hibino (along with one or two helpers when it gets busy), greeting customers, cooking and assembling sushi behind the counter in the back of the Niwot Market. He’s a veteran of the first sushi bar in Colorado, which was inside Pelican Pete’s seafood restaurant in Boulder in the late 1970s, and then was a mainstay of Boulder’s Sushi Tora. He opened Sachi Sushi in 2006 as a sushi counter and fish market where customers could buy fresh seafood. He now has a huge and loyal following that crowds the supermarket and fills the seating area, regulars hungry for his tonkotsu ramen, which is only available on Sunday in shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce) and spicy miso variations.

Sushi Kazu
12201 East Arapahoe Road, Centennial
This restaurant opened in 2002 and quietly built a loyal following. When its owner retired in 2024, Miho Yamaguchi, who’d been a server for years, and her husband, Katsuhisa, took over the business, adding his knowledge of tonkotsu ramen from Fukuoka Prefecture in his native Japan. The tonkotsu ramen is excellent, with a perfect balance of flavor, creaminess and umami-packed broth, as well as visible collagen from the pork bone in the base. The dish is basic — simple, even — though the tastes are complex and supremely satisfying. The couple only serves two flavors, the tonkotsu and a miso variant, along with spicy versions. (Note: every shop on this list offers a spicy version of its ramen, but Japanese diners typically don’t order spicy foods, with a couple of touristy exceptions in Tokyo. Instead, Japanese generally prefer to add their own heat with La-Yu chili oil or Sichimi seven pepper mix .)

Tokio
2907 Huron Street
Miki Hashimoto is a veteran of the sushi scene, having worked at Sushi Den (as have many of the best local sushi chefs) and then running his own restaurant, Japon, in Washington Park. After closing that restaurant in 2013, he went to Japan for a couple of years to learn how to make ramen, and he learned well, returning to open Tokio in 2014. He’s a perfectionist and has tweaked his ramen offerings to an all-star lineup. His tonkotsu is excellent, and the eatery also serves typical bowls including miso, shoyu (soy sauce) and shio (salt, made with chicken broth), along with some nontraditional variations such as lemon ramen, curry, the popular Cremoso Diablo (topped with cheese, believe it or not, and it works!), and the vegan Ramen Air made with soy milk broth. While you’re at Tokio, always order the wonderful gyoza dumplings — Hashimoto makes them by hand, and they’re much bigger than the puny frozen ones served by most restaurants.

Uncle
2215 West 32nd Avenue
95 South Pennsylvania Street
Owner Tommy Lee has done well as a restaurateur, first opening Uncle in 2012 in Highland, where he soon had people waiting in line. Then he opened Hop Alley, a Chinese restaurant in RiNo in 2015, followed by the Wash Park Uncle in 2019. An outpost of Uncle debuted on Concourse A at Denver International Airport last summer; the spicy garlic ramen with pork belly, garlic oil and garlic chips, and the mazemen (mixed noodles), a brothless ramen with pork belly, are ideal for travel days. Both the Highland and Wash Park locations offer duck ramen with a satisfying broth, but our favorite is the Jiro Ramen filled with pork belly and cabbage in a tonkotsu-like soup, which is only on offer at Uncle Wash Park.

Did your favorite ramen joint make the list? Send comments and suggestions to editorial@westword.com.