The Eleven Best Chinese Restaurants in Denver — 2016 Edition

Chinese New Year is nearly upon us again. While the actual date is February 8 this year, many Denver restaurants will be celebrating the coming of the Year of the Monkey with dragon dancers, music and other entertainment this weekend. And, of course, they'll be offering great food — stir-fries, noodles, steamed buns and other Chinese delights both traditional and modern. To help get you in the spirit, here's our list of the eleven best Chinese restaurants in Denver, in alphabetical order, with last year's pick for Best Chinese Restaurant in the number-one slot. 

Will last year's winner repeat? We'll let you know when our 2016 Best of Denver edition hits the streets on March 31. If you want a say in the matter, vote for your favorite in our 2016 Best of Denver Readers' Poll.
11. China Jade
12203 East Iliff Avenue, Aurora
303-755-8518
China Jade, a stalwart in an ever-changing Aurora strip mall on East Iliff Avenue, has been a perennial favorite for its dedication to traditional Sichuan cooking featuring hot pots, blazing hot sauces and dishes studded with tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorns. Soothing plates can be had, too, including  a chilled appetizer of silken tofu topped with preserved eggs in shades of jade and amber. And recently, the little shop did guests a favor by combining its Chinese menu with its roster of American-Chinese favorites, with prime menu real estate given to the house specialties. 

10. China Taipei
8100 South Quebec Street, Centennial
303-773-0155
For more than twenty years, the Chou family has been serving bold and beautiful Chinese fare to residents of Denver's southern suburbs — since before the name Centennial was even official. Tucked behind a row of retail shops and a stuccoed faux bell tower, the family-run restaurant surprises seekers of standard kung pao and sesame chicken with a deep menu of Taiwanese treasures, from thick noodle soups to succulent braised pork belly.

9. Hong Kong Barbecue
1048 South Federal Boulevard
303-937-9088
The specialty here is cha siu, barbecued pork and duck slow-roasted until the skins achieve a crackling finish and red-lacquered hue. But the deep menu also features other Cantonese specialties, such as thick congee studded with shredded duck and preserved eggs, emerald steamed vegetables in rich black or buttery-light sauces, and beefy noodle soups. 

8. Hop Alley
3500 Larimer Street
720-379-8340
Restaurateur Tommy Lee just opened his second spot in River North in December (his first is the still jam-packed noodle house Uncle), but it has already become one of the tops in town thanks to a thoroughly researched slate of regional specialties — like the Sichuan-style offal combo called husband-and-wife salad or the Xi'an street-food favorite cumin lamb sandwiches. Meats get added punch from time spent over wood coals, while modern menu sensibilities, from locally sourced, sustainable proteins and produce to a strong list of cocktails and wines, make Hop Alley, named in honor of Denver's long-gone nineteenth-century Chinatown, an instant destination.

7. King's Land Seafood Restaurant
2200 West Alameda Avenue
303-975-2399
King's Land serves plenty of fresh seafood, but fans flock to the cavernous west Denver dining hall for the weekend dim sum brunch, where teetering carts stacked with baskets of buns, siu mai, fritters and noodles trundle between tables — daring you to stuff yourself like a taut-skinned dumpling. Variety, quality and value combine into a dizzying eating event where, no matter how much you eat, the bill always seems to come to no more than twenty bucks a head.

Keep reading for the rest of our list of the best Chinese restaurants in Denver...


6. New Peach Garden
1111 Washington Avenue, Golden
303-279-0400
This quiet, subterranean kitchen right on Golden's main drag recently added more house specials to its already tempting list of dishes hailing from China's Shaanxi province — and other quadrants of the map lesser known in Denver's culinary collection. Housemade breads and hand-pulled noodles highlight a menu seasoned with cumin and scorched with Sichuan heat. Don't miss the rou jia mo: circular sandwiches stuffed with shreds of toothsome and aromatic pork or beef.

5. Shanghai Kitchen
4940 South Yosemite Street, Greenwood Village
303-290-8430
This southeast suburban eatery covers a range of American Chinese favorites, but there's also a menu in Chinese (with English translations) that features other dishes less familiar to typical takeout customers. Traditional preparations await those willing to make the crosstown trek from the usual Federal Boulevard haunts, so go hungry and explore the range of whole-fish specials, cold sesame noodles and other fare — including dishes that only appear on the specials board in Chinese characters. Look for "mini pork dumplings," the liquid-filled delights more commonly called soup dumplings or xiaolongbao. 
4. Star Kitchen
2917 West Mississippi Avenue
303-936-0089
Here's another dim sum palace, considerably smaller than King's Land, but no less bursting with variety. Fried turnip cakes, egg-custard tarts, pork buns (both sweet and savory, baked and steamed) and har gao jockey for space with glazed chicken feet, cubes of mango gelatin and and perfectly spherical sesame balls. It's all a little overwhelming, but come back for a slower-paced dinner to enjoy live-tank specials, an array of noodles from chewy yee-fu to Chou Zhou-style, and an excellent XO sauce smothering shrimp, scallop or coiled rice noodles.

3. Super Star Asian
2200 West Alameda Avenue
303-727-9889
Super Star completes Denver's trinity of top dim sum parlors, with cart after cart of Hong Kong's finest creations. But steamer baskets filled with diaphanous dumplings and braised chicken feet aren't the only draw. Live-fish tanks line one wall, so take a gander, and if you see shrimp, make sure you splurge on an order. Straight from the tank to the kitchen to your table, shrimp this fresh are an eye-opening experience, especially in landlocked Colorado.

2. Zoe Ma Ma
1625 Wynkoop Street, 303-545-6262
2010 10th Street, Boulder, 303-545-6262
Zoe Ma Ma is the closest thing you'll find to Chinese home cooking in the Denver-Boulder area. In fact, with owner Edwin Zoe's mom in the kitchen, you'll swear she's cooking just for you. Everything is made in-house, from tender steamed buns to plump dumplings to noodles at the bottom of every bowl of braised beef or chicken soup. Regulars know which day to head over for specials, with lion's-head meatballs making an appearance mid-week and the famous Sichuan beef noodle bowl showing up from Sunday to Tuesday. 

1. JJ Chinese Seafood Restaurant
2500 West Alameda Avenue
303-934-8888
The multiple menus at this eatery adorned with live tanks assure you that there's something here for almost every taste — all of it prepared with skill and an eye to tradition, and served by some of the friendliest waitstaff in town. Even the standard American-Chinese dishes are far from standard, including sweet-and-sour shrimp that's neither cloying nor gloppy. But the restaurant's name is a giveaway that the best dishes are those featuring the ocean's bounty, whether the delicate and ultra-fresh razor clams in XO sauce or whole flounder with steamy white flesh encased in a shatteringly crisp deep-fried crust. This is the go-to spot for Denver's off-duty chefs.