Il Posto Will Soon Move From 17th Avenue to RiNo

Chef/restaurateur Andrea Frizzi's hands are full these days: While running his charming Italian eatery, Il Posto, on East 17th Avenue in Uptown, he's also getting ready to launch Vero inside the Denver Central Market, which will open before the end of September. Vero will offer pizza from an imported wood-fired oven, fresh pasta and a selection of Italian pantry items. In addition, Frizzi is in the process of building out the space at 2601 Larimer Street (just a block from the Denver Central Market), where he will soon relocate Il Posto.

The new Il Posto, at 3,500 square feet, will more than double the seating of the current space and will have a mezzanine level with wide-open views of downtown, plus a seventy-seat patio that will wrap around the corner of the building on Larimer and 26th streets.

Based on his experiences as one of eleven vendors going into Central Market (which has encountered multiple delays since initially announcing a summer 2015 opening), Frizzi says he doesn't want to put an exact date on when Il Posto's move to the new location will be finalized. But he explains that opening in the winter won't be a bad thing, since it will give him time to adjust to the much larger kitchen and dining room before patio season hits.

While the lengthy bar and open kitchen are still being installed and construction dust covers much of the interior space, a couple of impressive features are already in place. The first is a two-story pivoting steel-and-glass wall that, although weighing several hundred pounds, can be opened with the slightest push. The second is a gorgeous lighting installation comprising several dozen copper tubes that snake from the vaulted ceiling, each tipped with a glass globe and light bulb. The bulbs float in the air at various heights, giving the impression of a weightless jellyfish with tendrils hovering above the dining room tables. Frizzi notes that an Italian artisan was brought in to assemble the intricate fixture.

While we're sad to say goodbye to the intimate neighborhood eatery that Il Posto has become since opening nearly ten years ago, the new version will offer a more modern experience combined with Frizzi's creative and often-shifting Italian cuisine.