Best Taste of the Future 2008 | L'Atelier | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Taste of the Future

L'Atelier

Courtesy L'Atelier Facebook
Chef Radek Cerny has never been an easy guy to pin down. In his earliest days in Colorado, he was just another French-trained classical chef who had a few weird tricks with potatoes and a string of gigs that pointed up those talents. But lately he's been venturing down some pretty strange culinary avenues and coming back with absolutely brilliant dishes, including lobster in potato foam and duck rillettes with potato Napoleon. He can do the classics (lobster meunière), the modern (smoked Scottish salmon with liquid horseradish), the bizarre (chicken and moonshine) and the simple (a sashimi board). But the best thing he does may be a killer Monday "staff meal" prix fixe, which offers some of the best tastes of the back of the house for just $25.

Best Tasting Menu

O's Steak & Seafood

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Ian Kleinman's molecular-gastronomy tasting menus at O's Steak & Seafood at the Westin Westminster are absolutely amazing. His dedication to pushing the boundaries of cuisine to strange and unusual places — mixing his years as a classically trained chef with an essential, up-from-nothing, hey-let's-see-what-this-tastes-like spirit — is admirable, as is his rigid, almost doctrinaire insistence that the results still be food (not art, not performance, not all sizzle with no steak). But what truly makes Kleinman's ever-changing, molecular-gastronomy tasting menu so special is that its end — usually a half-dozen dishes — is really just the beginning. Because scattered throughout the regular menu at O's are countless examples of molecular gastronomy at work, executing a stealth attack on the expectations of staid hotel diners and introducing them to an entirely new concept of food.

Best Tequila/Mezcal List

Mezcal

Danielle Lirette
There are as many good reasons to spend a night drinking tequila and mezcal as there are great places in Denver to do it. But if you're looking for the best, head directly to Mezcal. Since this Colfax cantina opened four years ago, it's been like a shrine to the best use of the humble agave cactus. Whether you're looking to get sloppy on the cheap stuff or high on some of the amazing elixirs poured here, Mezcal is sure to have something with your name on it. The bar stocks over a hundred varieties of tequila and mezcal and has an ever-changing lineup as a result of the owners' and staff's obsession with always finding the newest, oldest, best and most artisan south-of-the-border booze there is.

Best Thai Curry Soup, Korean Beef and Sushi

Uoki

American restaurants are good at mashing a dozen ethnic or regional favorites onto a single menu and calling the resulting mess "comfort food," "American regional" or something even goofier. Ethnic restaurants do the same thing when they throw Americanized Chinese dishes, Vietnamese favorites and sushi together on a single board, under the inclusive banner of "Asian fusion." And both the American and Asian versions are usually abject failures, because in trying to be all things to all people, they wind up being nothing to nobody. A rare exception: Uoki, which does a great job with Asian comfort foods, including an absolutely wonderful bowl of green-curry-and-potato soup that makes for a universally satisfying lunch when you combine it with an order of tekka maki and a plate of Korean beef with rice.

Best Thai Restaurant

US Thai Cafe

Mark Antonation
We've spent years wandering the streets of Denver, looking for good pad thai, masamun and papaya salad — and found a lot of versions that were mediocre, even bad. And then we discovered US Thai Cafe. At this tiny spot, all the classic dishes of Thai cuisine have a depth and breadth of flavor quite unlike anything we'd ever tasted before. And on top of that, they're offered in an ascending scale of heat, from total pussy to nuclear conflagration, that can be endlessly tinkered with and adjusted according to how much pain you want with your pleasure.

Best Tibetan Restaurant

Tibet's

How lucky are we to not only have a Tibetan restaurant, but a genuine competition for the best Tibetan restaurant? This time, Tibet's takes the prize. Started last year by former staffers from other local Tibetan restaurants — and a chef who once cooked for the Dalai Lama at a Tibetan monastery! — Tibet's celebrates both the culture and cuisine of that country, with prayer flags and photographs of mountains, with excellent dumplings, huge bowls of aromatic stew and glasses of chai tea that you can enjoy before a crackling fireplace. While most of us may never have the opportunity to actually visit Tibet, a meal at Tibet's is the next best thing.

Best Torta

Tacos D.F.

Mark Antonation
At Tacos D.F., a former taco-truck-turned-restaurant-proper, the most extreme torta on the board might be the cubano — a monstrous thing made of ham, milanesa, cheese, beans, lettuce and a whole hot dog, split lengthwise and seared on the grill. But the best is the simple ham with avocado: ham stacked thick on a soft, lardy bun with sliced avocado, shredded lettuce, tomato and a chile-spiked dressing that's like a rémoulade after a semester spent hitchhiking through Chihuahua. It's beautiful, comforting, perfectly balanced — a work of peasant culinary art easily on par with the best, fanciest sandwiches served anywhere in town. Better, maybe, if you get to eat it while sitting in Tacos D.F.'s dining room, watching Mexican game shows on the TV in the corner and surrounded by people who understand that getting the best sometimes means looking in the least likely locations.

Best Traditional Vietnamese Restaurant

Ha Noi Pho

Jellied blood. Fishscale mint. Unpronounceable soups filled with unidentifiable ingredients. Sound like your kind of dinner? Then you need to get down to Ha Noi Pho for a taste of the authentic peasant/market/street-corner cuisine of Vietnam. This spot doesn't boast much in the way of decor, and on a slow night, the staff might be sitting around playing cards. But once you get past the brief culture shock, you'll find a meal unlike any in the city. From the simplest pho to the more complicated soups of Hue and Hanoi, from plainly grilled meats and noodle bowls to plates of completely alien flora, every dish here is an adventure — and a chance to get a taste of what comfort means to one of Denver's largest expatriate communities.

Best Vegetarian Restaurant

WaterCourse Foods

Danielle Lirette
Though we've never been crazy about restaurants that self-identify as vegetarian (believing that starting from such a limited culinary position can only serve to strangle any creativity or free thinking in the kitchen), WaterCourse Foods has been in the game long enough to overcome any such restrictions. The result is a restaurant that has the vegetarian and vegan ethos worked into its DNA, that creates meatless cuisine simply as a matter of course, not as a reaction against anything external. And while the tempeh bacon, scrambled tofu and seitan Buffalo wings still drive us bonkers, the kitchen does a good stack of pancakes, excellent (if bacon-free) breakfasts, and surprisingly flavorful tamales, fried-potato tacos and vegetable-centric pastas. And it's all served in a brand-spanking-new space with lots of room for the crowds WaterCourse draws.

Best Vietnamese Breakfast

Ha Noi Pho

Not everyone has the time, the taste or the temperament to forgo their morning bowl of Muesli or Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs in favor of the flavors of Southeast Asia. But for those who do, there's Ha Noi Pho, which offers not only traditional breakfast pho and a tall glass of Vietnamese coffee thickened with a shot of sweetened, condensed milk, but also the beautifully simple and incomparable banh mi op la: eggs sunnyside up with a French baguette. It kicks the hell out of an Egg McMuffin.

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