86ed Chef Returns to Denver for a Fresh Start. Again.

Since the launch of Colorado's Michelin Guide in 2023, Denver has attracted more big-name chefs and tasting menu-style concepts. The latest high-end tasting menu on the scene comes from a name that may be familiar: Jacob Bickelhaupt.

The chef gained a lot of attention after starting a buzzy underground supper club in Chicago with his then-wife Alexa Walsh, which the two parlayed into the even more buzzy high-end eatery 42 Grams in 2014.

The business earned two Michelin stars after being open for only ten months, and a 2017 documentary, also called 42 Grams, focused on how Bickelahupt became "a culinary celebrity in less than a year and the toll it takes on his personal life," according to the IMBD description.

The same year the film was released, 42 Grams closed seemingly out of the blue — but nearly a year later, the full story came out. Bickelhaupt and Walsh had gotten a divorce but were still business partners in June 2017, when he was arrested for an attack that included throwing her to the ground by her hair and hitting her over the head with a bottle in the restaurant's parking lot during service, the same evening he Tweeted a closure announcement from the business's account. He eventually pleaded guilty to battery.

Bickelhaupt attempted a comeback in Chicago by launching another underground supper club, Konro, and opening another brick-and-mortar, Stone Flower, in 2019. That year, he also sued Walsh for, as Book Club Chicago put it, "telling her story of domestic abuse," which he claimed cost him $250,000 in lost business. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but it certainly didn't help his reputation; Stone Flower closed in January 2021.

That's where another documentary centered on Bickelhaupt, 86ed, begins — with a close-up shot of his tear-filled eyes, followed by sequences of him packing up Stone Flower. "After a violent incident with his ex-wife and business partner, a chef seeks to rebuild his life amid a cloud of cancel culture and online bullying," reads the description of the self-funded film on Tubi, where it is available to stream for free.
The two-hour-long documentary follows his move to Denver, where he and his new wife, Nadia, relaunched Konro from their home. In February 2021, Westword published a story by then-food editor Mark Antonation about Konro and Bickelhaupt's desire to find a fresh start in Denver.

That story also appears in 86ed, with Nadia tearfully recounting the negative public reaction. The drama surrounding the Bickelhaupts' move to Colorado continued — and is also documented in 86ed —  when Bickelhaupt was chosen to be part of the Colorado Five, a group of chefs meant to represent the best of the state's culinary scene, who would cook at a series of annual pop-up dinners and other events. That program was created by Leigh Sullivan in 2017 but after public backlash, Bickelhaupt was asked to leave the group and Sullivan has not brought the Five back since.

Near the end of 86ed, Bickelhaupt shares his story of what happened the day of the incident with Walsh. "Jacob's confession is the first time he ever talked publically about the day 42 Grams closed," the documentary notes, and it is a hard story to listen to.

The film ends with the couple hosting a Konro dinner in their Denver home, but they didn't stay in the city much longer. By October 2022, they had moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, and announced plans to open a version of Konro there. That chef's table restaurant debuted in October 2023.

Now, the Bickelhaupts are back in Denver. According to a press release, they are opening an eight-seat chef’s counter restaurant named Thirteen20 at 3455 Ringsby Court in RiNo's Taxi development. "Tickets for the chef’s counter are extremely limited and are currently available to book through OpenTable," the press release notes, though the only reservation currently showing as available is a 6:45 p.m. timeslot on February 5.

The restaurant overview on OpenTable says that guests "will enjoy an intimate 10-14 course tasting menu of the best ingredients sourced from around the world prepared with old world techniques with each course described by our chefs." The cost is $295 per person with a beverage pairing available for an additional $195, an N/A pairing for $175, and an A5 wagyu add-on for $125.

In comparison, the chef's counter experience at Michelin-starred restaurant Beckon is $195 per person. The newly opened Sushi by Scratch, a chef's counter omakase concept from Michelin-starred husband-and-wife team Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee, is priced the same. Bruto and the Wolf's Tailor, which each have a Michelin star, are $175 and $200, respectively.

That makes Thirteen20 the most expensive tasting menu in town by nearly $100 per person for food alone.