Madeline wants to bring a touch of elegance back to Denver’s dining scene

Taking over the former space of a once-popular restaurant is no easy task. Diners inevitably compare menus and judge changes to the decor, and the grumpy regulars among them bemoan the loss of their favorite dishes. 

The more iconic the location, the harder it is to erase those old memories. So when chef Quincy Cherrett created Madeline in the location that once housed the much-beloved Fruition on East Sixth Avenue earlier this month, he knew he was walking into a long, intimidating shadow. 

When chef Alex Seidel opened Fruition in 2007, he helped usher in a new wave of high-end, chef-driven establishments that redefined the Denver food scene at the time. For 18 years, the restaurant played host to birthdays, anniversaries, engagements and more. And for those of us who attended such events, Madeline’s redesign might come as a bit of a shock. 

The small space pops hard with vibrant, earthy green walls and dark cherry wood tables and shelves; smooth jazz is piped through the speakers. It feels a little like the formal dining room you weren’t allowed to enter as kids: the room with the nicer furniture meant only for the grownups.

Madeline isn’t stuffy or hushed, necessarily. But it’s not a boisterous, hip hangout decorated with graffiti art and exposed brick walls, either. In a single word, it’s “elegant.” And that was exactly Cherrett’s goal. 

“Yeah, we definitely wanted some elegance to it,” he says. “It’s been an honor to come into Fruition, so we didn’t want to do something dramatic, like put in a sandwich shop or something like that.” 

Far from it. Cherrett’s menu makes every effort to match the elegance of the decor, not only with beautifully crafted plates but also with a seasonal approach that blends creativity and a unique point of view. The result does more than justice to the former tenant — it may even make you forget about Fruition altogether. 

As much as the striking green walls help erase the optical vestiges of the restaurant’s past, each dish retrains your palate with entirely new flavors developed from Cherrett’s unique background. 

“It’s kind of the journey I’ve had in culinary,” he says. “I grew up working in a Thai restaurant … since I was like 15 years old. I’ve worked in Japanese restaurants, like Izakaya Den, and then a lot of French bistros … So it’s kind of my journey of where I started and where I’ve ended up. I just wanted to create a menu that was super fun and different than anything I’ve seen.”

That includes a deft blend of Thai, Italian and French flavors throughout. Among the standout examples of this is the tom yum toast, a small, shareable plate that has already become a favorite in Madeline’s short history. It’s sort of like a shrimp version of French toast, aggressively flavored with a charred tomato and fish sauce vinaigrette that is nearly impossible to stop eating. But by all means do, because there’s a lot more menu to work through. 

Cherrnett’s approach is to keep the items familiar, while changing the specifics to match the seasons. So while the agnolotti pasta today is filled with lamb and complemented by a wonderful mint pea puree and morel mushrooms, next month it may shift to different fillings and sauces. The white miso celery root puree and jasmine tea-pickled pears that accompany the scallops may give way to corn and other ferments as tea moves out of season. And while the green curry will remain, the halibut it currently accents will be replaced by a different fish.

“We’ll start talking with farmers and building more of a relationship with them in the market,” Cherrett says. “We’ll probably do a seasonal fruit, stone fruits. It’s really cool to hear so many restaurants in Denver are starting to really highlight a lot of local produce.”

Even the desserts are unique and balanced. The black sesame cheesecake is a particularly distinctive play on a common offering, served in a jar so that it resembles more of a pudding than the dense, heavy slab you’d see at other restaurants. 

With dishes like these, Cherrett shows he’s not afraid of taking over a location like Fruition. If anything, the location’s history seems to serve more as an inspiration, maybe even a challenge, driving the chef to put out a product that doesn’t just match expectations, but resets them entirely.

“I wanted to do nicer plates with beautiful product and pay homage to what Fruition was and what it did for the city of Denver,” Cherrett says. “It put it on the map with food. Seidel did an amazing job, and this kind of feels like he’s just passed the torch down.”

Madeline is located at 1313 E. Sixth Ave. and is open from 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, visit restaurantmadeline.com.