Seventeen Tastiest Events on Denver's Culinary Calendar, October 24-28

Halloween creeps into the culinary calendar in a big way this week, but even with all the haunted happenings around Denver, there are still plenty of delicious dinners and benefits.  From costume parties to La Loma's last stand, here are the seventeen tastiest events over the next few days.  

Monday, October 24 

Plates for the Peak, a benefit for Urban Peak, will take over Vesta Dipping Grill from 7 to 10 p.m. today. Your $85 ticket will get you small plates, specialty drinks, networking opportunities and more. Purchase tickets and learn more here. 

Frasca Food and Wine welcomes Chateau de Beaucastel for the restaurant's Monday Night Wine Dinner. Frasca's Monday night dinners are $50 for a prix fixe four-course meal, with optional wine pairings ranging from $40 to $50. Call Frasca at 303-442-6966 to make your reservations.  

Boulder's West End Tavern is hosting its Wing King Challenge starting at 8 p.m. today. For a $25 entry fee, you can attempt to polish off fifty wings in under thirty minutes. If you finish, you'll get a Wing King T-shirt, your mug shot on the West End Tavern website, and a $25 Big Red F gift card. The king who cleans the bucket of wings the fastest gets free wings for a year, a $100 Big Red F gift card, a Wing King T-shirt, and a mug shot on the West End's wall of fame and website for eternity. For more information, visit thewestendtavern.com. 

As part of the Flatirons Food Film Festival, Basta will host Taste the Wild: A Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Dinner at 6 p.m. The multi-course, family-style dinner is $45 and includes two short films about sustainable seafood. Reserve your seat by calling Basta at 303-997-8775.

After dinner service today, La Loma will close its doors after nearly 35 years in Jefferson Park and move to its new location at 1801 Broadway, where it will reopen in early November. For its last day of business at the current location, La Loma will host its last tailgate party starting at 4 p.m., as the Denver Broncos take on the Houston Texans. You can get your picture taken with the portrait of Grandma Mendoza from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. as a souvenir and thank-you gift. The restaurant will also offer $8 Don Julio margaritas, $3 hand-wrapped burritos, and $5 draft beers, and there will be a free shuttle to and from the game. Call La Loma at 303-433-8300 for more information. 

Tuesday, October 25 

Learn the tips and tricks of baking at altitude during the Seasoned Chef's "Baking at 5280" class today. The class runs from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., and tuition is $69. Register and get all the details at theseasonedchef.com. 

Wednesday, October 26 

Channel your inner Prohibition-era gangster for Firenze a Tavola's annual Halloween Gangster Dinner. The community table dinner, which starts at 6:30, will feature four courses of traditional East Coast Italian-American fare for $33 per person. Call 303-561-0234 to save your seat at the table.  

The Way Back is hosting a "Vote for Climate" Voter Registration Happy Hour today,  from 4 to 6:30 p.m.  The bar has partnered with New Belgium Brewery and Protect Our Winters to encourage last-minute voter registration and raise money and awareness for POW. When you register to vote at the Way Back, you'll get one free New Belgium beer. The bar will also offer other food and drink happy-hour specials, and $1 of every New Belgium beer sold through Election Day on Tuesday, November 8, will go to POW. Call the Way Back at 720-728-8156 for more information on the event; for more on POW, visit protectourwinters.org.  

Blackbelly Butcher and Infinite Monkey Theorem are teaming up for a Butchers & Wine Benefit, which will kick off at 6:30 p.m. today at Blackbelly Butcher. The evening will start with a cocktail reception, followed by a family-style dinner and wine from Infinite Monkey. Proceeds from the party will help to support Blackbelly butcher Isaac Sullenger, who was recently hospitalized after a nearly fatal accident. Reservations for the party are $65 and can be made here. 

Keep reading for more events this week.
Thursday, October 27 

Punch Bowl Social will host Elysian Brewing’s Great Pumpkin Road Show today from 5 to 10 p.m. You can enjoy rare Elysian pumpkin beers as well as other guest taps, and there will also be brewery swag giveaways, a costume contest and more. For more information, contact Punch Bowl at 303-765-2695.  

Things will get spooky during Beatrice & Woodsley's Ghosts by Lantern Light Dinner tonight. The four-course dinner is $45, with optional wine pairings available for an additional cost.  Seating for the dinner is limited, so call 303-777-3505 to make your reservations now. 

Learn how to save the last of your fall harvest at Cook Street's preservation class today. From smoking to pickling and beyond, you'll learn everything you need to know to keep your pantry stocked all winter. The class, which runs from 6 to 9:30 p.m., is $89 and includes dinner and drink pairings. Register and learn more at cookstreet.com.    

Battle of the Chefs, a cooking competition benefiting local nonprofit Project Pave, will pit four Colorado leaders against each other in a battle for the title of top chef tonight. Bill and Jeannie Ritter will go head to head against Mitch and Maggie Morrissey, with each team cooking up its favorite Italian-themed dish. You can witness the cooking in action, taste the dishes and cast your vote for the “Crowd Favorite." Tickets to the event, which gets under way at 5 p.m. at the Denver Athletic Club, start at $100 per person; grab yours and learn more here.  

The twelfth annual Naturally Boulder Pitch Slam and Autumn Awards allows entrepreneurs to pitch their startup to a panel of experts and compete for prizes, including $5,000 in cash, free business services and a booth at New Hope Network’s Natural Products Expo West, the world’s largest natural and organic products expo. Preliminaries run from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Glenn Miller Ballroom at the University of Colorado Boulder and are free to watch. From 5 to 9 p.m., after cocktails and a buffet, five finalists will compete before the audience to select a Pitch Slam winner and runner-ups, to be followed by the Autumn Awards celebration. Paid registration ($110) is required for the second half of the evening; register and learn more here. 

More than fifty Denver and Arvada area restaurants, craft breweries and vendors will strut their stuff from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight during Taste of Arvada, at the Apex Center. Restaurant and bar vendors will also compete for coveted prizes in their categories, voted on by you. Adult tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Children's tickets are $5 for ages six to twelve, and children under six get in free. Find tickets and all the details here. 

Friday, October 28 

River North Brewery is bringing together an unlikely pairing during Bach and Beer. Starting at 7:30 p.m. today, internationally recognized cellist Steuart Pincombe will play his program of three Bach cello suites paired with three River North brews. Tickets for the event are on a name-your-own-ticket-price basis; you're encouraged to pay what you can afford. For more information, visit musicinfamiliarspaces.com.  

The Downtown Aquarium gets in the holiday spirit with Halloween Fest. Today through Sunday, the whole family can take part in mad-science experiments, pumpkin-patch painting, a costume contest, trick-or-treating, games, prizes and more. Activities outside the aquarium are free, and kids in costume will get half-price admission on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, click here.  

For more Food & Drink events, go to our online calendar. If you know of an event that should be included in that calendar, send information to [email protected].