Fruition Comes to Fruition

Fruition, which opened last month in the former Somethin’ Else space on Sixth Avenue, opted out of Denver Restaurant Week because owners Paul Attardi and Alex Seidel wisely decided that the crushing DRW scrum might be tough on such a new place.

Still, it’s doing a respectable business this week. Though I was able to get a late reservation just two days ahead of my planned visit and my table was ready and waiting when I arrived, the place had two turns on the books and was doing an excellent walk-up business, too, with (I have to assume) a whole lot of procrastinators like me keeping the floor full and the staff jumping right up until closing time.

The red/gold beet carpaccio with goat cheese fritters was amazing. The butter-poached salmon was like a textbook example of French technique, smoky, sweet, decadent with butterfat and fish oil, and perfectly presented beneath its thorny crown of shaved and salted asparagus. The beet spaetzle? Not as good as I’d been led to believe, but coming along.

I felt the same way about some of the other dishes, but Fruition is young yet. Right now, it’s like ten degrees shy of excellence, needing nothing more than a little nudge here and there to become the truly great restaurant it has the potential to be. — Jason Sheehan