High-End Downtown Tasting Menu Spot Is Making a Comeback

Syd Younggreen and Peruvian-born chef Brian De Souza would like you to be their guest — again. The couple, who met while working at Her Name Was Carmen in New York City, moved to Colorado in 2019 and launched The Guest, a tasting-menu concept, during the pandemic as a pop-up in their Boulder home.

Flash forward to 2023, when they introduced The Regular, an à la carte fine dining eatery at 1432 Market Street that, for a time, also housed the second iteration of The Guest, which held prix fixe dinners in a room within the space.

But after several pivots, which included adding daytime market El Mercado in another connected space and launching a cocktail pop-up dubbed The Stranger, the two repurposed The Regular earlier this year as an event space that can also host guest chef dinners.

Now, The Guest is making another comeback.

Last week, it held test dinners to preview the eleven-course menu with which it will open. The meal, priced at $190 per person, plus optional wine pairings and à la carte cocktails, started a bit shaky — a duck doughnut that didn’t taste much like duck, overly charred wood ear mushrooms on French toast, and a “palate-cleansing” apple dish that was more show than flavor. But the team was still perfecting things, and the evening ended on some very high notes, with dishes like a brûléed scallop in a sweet tamarind sauce, lobster in an “almost-burnt” aji amarillo cream sauce, and a tender duck leg served on the bone.

There was all the pomp and circumstance of a fine-dining meal. The serving dish for the apple course was an actual whole apple, flame-kissed and carved into a bowl; the scallop was tucked under a large scallop shell; the duck leg was surrounded by foraged plants; cocktails were served in eye-catching glassware, and the entire team, Youngreen and De Souza included, were running food to tables and chatting with guests.

It felt like a dinner party, which is the whole idea, with a lot of personal connections to the dishes shared along the way, plus a lovely surprise parting gift for guests to remember their meal.

The Guest will officially open on November 6, though reservations for the first eight weeks of its run launched last week and have already sold out — thanks to buzz from influencer posts following those test dinners.

Unlike when The Regular originally launched, Youngreen and De Souza aren’t on their own. This third iteration of the Guest is part of the business branch of Culinary Creative Group, which “supports talented emerging chefs and their concepts from both an investment and operational standpoint,” according to founder Juan Padró. CCG currently operates fourteen bar, restaurant and coffee shop brands in Denver, including A5 Steakhouse, Kumoya, Bar Dough, Sorry Gorgeous, Aviano, Fox and the Hen, Mister Oso and more.

“I’ve been working with them for about a year, and I just fell in love with them,” Padró says. “They work so hard, they are so passionate. You don’t get a chance to work with that kind of talent very often.” This relaunch, he adds, is a chance for Younggreen and De Souza to “showcase who they are, and we’re supporting that. It’s all about them.”

The Guest is located inside The Regular event space at 1432 Market Street and will be open Thursday through Saturday starting November 6. Reservations are currently sold out but will open up every sixty days going forward. For more information, visit theguestdenver.com.