Owners of Michelin-Starred Alma Fonda Fina Open Alteño in Cherry Creek

Johnny and Kasie Curiel are on a roll. In December 2023, the husband-and-wife duo opened their first solo venture, LoHi's Alma Fonda Fina, which earned a Michelin star less than a year later.

In 2024, they added two more restaurants, Cozobi Fonda Fina in Boulder and Mezcaleria Alma next door to Alma Fonda Fina.

Now, they've debuted a fourth concept, Alteño, inside the Clayton Hotel & Members Club at 233 Clayton Street. That Cherry Creek space was most recently home to Kini's, and Of a Kind before that.

Four restaurants in less than eighteen months is a whirlwind. "That's it, I promise," Curiel says of plans to open any more in the near future. "I want to make sure our foundations are strong. If we want to continue to grow, first we have to take care of all this. We are so lucky and fortunate. Getting there is not easy, but staying there is even harder."
Expanding an existing concept is one thing, but each of Curiel's restaurants offers a different experience. "Alma Fonda Fina, I always describe as you being at my kitchen table and me sharing my mom's recipes with you. No gas, all electric, no hoods, small space," he says.

Though it's a similar size and also prominently features chef's counter-style dining, Mezcaleria Alma is "my love letter to Mexico City. ... It's definitely more of a party," Curiel says, while Cozobi in Boulder was inspired by "my love for barbecue, for wood-fired cooking." He compares a meal at Alma Fonda Fina to visiting his home kitchen,while Cozobi is like gathering at the park and throwing food on a grill.

Alteño is "an ode to my father and what I remember of him shaping me as a man and becoming the person I am today because of the great combination of what my mom did and my dad as a chef, as a father and as a restaurateur," Curiel ads. His father, the original Alteño (or “highlander"), is from Jalisco, and his influence runs through the restaurant.

But the inspiration behind Alteño is just one of the many differences that set it apart from its sister concepts.

The space

Alteño is the largest of Curiel's restaurants, with seating for 94 guests inside plus a patio. The next largest, Cozobi, seats 72. The added space is a return to what Johnny and Kasie were used to in their careers prior to striking out on their own.

"Learning how to work Alma was hard. You go from running operations where you have twenty or thirty employees, then trying to run an operation where there's ten, and if the ten people are scheduled at the same time, it's too many, you don't fit," Curiel says. "It was comforting, it was nurturing to be able to to say, this is what we've done for our whole lives, let's get back to it."

The larger space also means there's room for bigger groups, and the entire front section of the space is reserved for walk-ins — a major win for anyone who has had a hard time getting reservations at Alma Fonda Fina.

The dark and sexy decor by Agatha Jane Interior Design includes many nods to Jalisco, including a collection of framed Mexican doilies and a hand-painted, Tonalá-style velvet mural above the raw bar by local artist Delton Demares.

The Raw Bar

The addition of the raw bar, which is the focal point as you enter the dining room, was important to Curiel because this space, unlike his other three eateries, does not have any chef's counter seating.

"Even though our kitchen is open [at Alteño], there's not a lot of conversation that the hot line is having with the guests," he notes. "Who's better than the cooks to tell you the story about the food or the ingredients? So making the raw bar the center of the restaurant and having one of our line chefs out there gives that point of conversation when you're sitting at the bar."

The restaurant is also set up so that cooks are able to run food to the tables and have one-on-one dialogue with guests about the dishes.

The Booze

As at Curiel's other concepts, agave spirits are prominently featured in the beverage program, which was designed by beverage director Jen Mattioni. The cocktail lineup includes one familiar favorite — the avocado margarita that has been a hit since Alma Fonda Fina opened. Other highlights include a top-tier Paloma and a white negroni made with both tequila and mezcal.

The big difference, though, is the expanded wine selection. "My dad is a wine drinker," Curiel says. "He's one of those chefs that actually cooks at home and he loves gatherings, having people over, and he always wants to talk about wine." There are over twenty vino options available by the glass as well as an extensive bottle list.

The Food

Alteño's menu is divided into four sections: raw bar offerings, shareable starters, dishes that highlight maiz, and large-format entrees.

Curiel recommends starting with the Aguachile de Atun, slices of tuna belly layered with green apple in a bright broth made with fennel juice and lemon oil. This light and refreshing dish is a great way to kick off the meal.
Among the starters is a dish that's become a staple at Alma Fonda Fina, the Camote Asado. But here, the sweet potato with whipped requesón and salsa macha is made a bit differently. "It's a bigger potato, cooked in the hearth, so you get those smoky notes from the wood fire," he says. "This is the dish people talk about all the time, so we re-engineered it and did it our own way."
The only other familiar component is another hit from Alma, the sourdough tortillas. Here, they come with queso fundido, a dish that is often found on restaurant menus in Jalisco — including that of Curiel's father. Alteño's take on the melty cheese is topped with wild mushrooms and served with pasilla salsa on the side for a dish that's anything but one-note.
Curiel also fondly remembers his father's crab-stuffed mushrooms, which he often made in escargot dishes. The dish was a culinary awakening for Curiel when he was a child — once he finally tried a bite. For years, he was encouraged to eat it and when he did, "It was like, oh shit, that's actually really good," he recalls. "It kind of opened my brain to understanding that there are things in our life that we're comfortable with and that we appreciate and that we love and that we want to stick to, but there is so much out there that our brains and our mouths haven't experienced, so it's like, always give it a chance. I think it built who I am today."

The version of the dish on the menu at Alteño is a crab cake-like patty made with blue crab paired with portobello over a hoja santa remoulade, best enjoyed with a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Among the large format entrees is the barbacoa Tatemada, a tender lamb shank cooked in the hickory-smoked hearth and served with guacachile (a bright green sauce), escabeche, garbanzo consomme and corn tortillas.
But if there's one dish that Curiel believes will become Alteño's signature, it's the Pan De Elote, a jalapeno and Tillamook cheddar cornbread with a soft fluffy texture that eats almost like a spoon bread, served with huitlacoche butter topped with black truffles.

Cornbread may seem like an odd choice for a Mexican restaurant, but for Curiel, it's an ideal fit. "The city of Tepatitlán is called ciudad del huevo, or egg city," he says, because it produces so many eggs, and the area surrounding it is "like driving through Nebraska, it's just cornfields and cornfields and cornfields. ... So this was like making something in my way that means a lot to that region. It's fresh, it gets baked to order. I think it's gonna be the crowd winner at Alteño."

Dessert

None of Curiel's other restaurants offer dessert, but Alteño is kicking off its run with a trio of sweet treats to end the meal. Options include flan Napolitano with mezcal caramel and sesame seed brittle; Mexican choclate pot de creme; and lemon chiffon cake tres leches with toasted coconut.

Future Plans

"We've become stronger with these four restaurants," Curiel concludes, adding that now it's time to "make sure we are who we who we believe we are. ...We'll continue to grow next year or the following year. But first,we've got to take care of all of this and make sure people are getting the same experience in Boulder and Denver and Cherry Creek. Then we can talk about something else."

Alteño is located inside Clayton Hotel and Members Club at 249 Clayton Street and is open from 3 to 11 p.m. daily, with happy hour from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, visit altenorestaurant.com.