The couple met while working in high-end restaurants in New York City, then moved to Colorado and started the Guest. Now they're focused on building more culinary buzz with their own fine-dining restaurant, the Regular, which opened at 1432 Market Street last month.
Soon they'll introduce a new version of the Guest, as well as a daytime concept called El Mercado. "I think we were doing it to really prove to ourselves that we could," Younggreen says of the home-cooked dinners, "and that people enjoyed our food and were willing to pay for it. But at the end of the day, if we want to keep pursuing it and growing, this was the obvious next step."
The 6,800-square-foot spot, which was last home to Irish pub Maloney's Tavern, had been vacant for several years before Younggreen and De Souza found it. They embarked on an extensive renovation project to transform the old Victorian storefront into a space that's dark and moody, yet with comfortable vibes. There's a sofa-filled lounge and bar in front, a dining room at the far end, and a fireplace tying the two halves together; connected areas will soon host the Guest and El Mercado. "It was a much longer and more expensive project than we originally anticipated, but at the end of the day, we got something way more special and unique than we ever could have gotten just going into another space, so it was worth it," Younggreen says.
"We were trying to do something a little less fine-dining than this," De Souza admits. "I couldn't help it."
So far, though, things are going just fine.
Just a few weeks after the Regular's debut, the dining room was quiet as I settled in for an early dinner. A velvet green banquette runs down one side of the dining room balanced by large, tufted leather booths on the other and a line of tables down the middle. Six oysters soon arrived, each shell perched atop cylinders of salt, the bivalves themselves barely visible under a pea-green liquid dotted with small pools of orange and forest-green oil, popping with color like an abstract painting. The menu description is simple enough — "parsley, thyme, pickled shallot, bacon fat" — but the flavor was something entirely new.
Normally, I appreciate a minimalist approach to oysters. A little squirt of lemon, maybe a tiny scoop of fresh horseradish or a bit of mignonette, in order to let the natural flavor shine. Sometimes restaurants overwhelm oysters with additions that mask the butteriness or brininess or sweetness of whatever variety it's serving. But here the oysters were transformed, their natural salinity mellowed — but not covered up — by the bacon fat, which added an unexpected but totally welcome unctuousness.
But there's more at the heart of the Regular's approach to fine dining than fat, or herbs, or even the oysters themselves. "Love, care and passion are the only ingredients that I care for," De Souza says. "I can cook out of an eggshell; that's not a problem. But if you don't have love, care and passion, then it doesn't matter how many years of experience you have, how many techniques you have, how many ingredients you have in your walk-in."
That outlook allows the Regular to balance the comfort of eating in someone's home with the elevated experience that you expect when paying $30 for a half-dozen oysters — and it flavors everything that every member of the team does. "I try to coach this to everybody that works here," De Souza says. "Even folding a napkin, even picking a flower — whatever you do, do it with love, care and passion."
In the kitchen, he adds, that translates to, "When a beautiful fish comes in that just died ten hours ago, it deserves the respect. From the moment it arrives, how you handle it, how you put it in the walk-in, how you label it. Everything, in my opinion, reflects love, care and passion. Without that, we can't cook; we can't do anything."
In creating the menu, De Souza, who was born in Peru but has lived all over the world — everywhere from Spain and Switzerland to China, Russia and London — follows his passion wherever it may take him, without boundaries. "I can't — not because I don't want to — but I can't be in a box," he says. "Naturally, I'm going to break it at some point. So what food do I do? Whatever I want. What food do I like the most? Everything. That helps me to keep pushing forward. Instead of, like, 'This is what I'm gonna do, so this is the route I'm going to find' — I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go to the road, and if I want to go left, I go left. If I want to go right, I go right. If I want to go back, I go back."
For him, the process of designing a new dish is visual. "I imagine the plating in front of me before I even think about how I'm going to cook it," he says. "It starts really simple: 'I like this piece of halibut.' And then I can see it on the plate. And then, after the visualization, which is colors and different items, then I'm like, 'Oh, I'm gonna make a broth out of this, I'm gonna ferment this, I'm gonna turn this into a powder, I'm gonna turn this into a sphere, I'm gonna turn this into a foam floating on top."
Following the oysters was salmon tiradito ($28), thin slices of fish dotted with pale-pink char roe and arranged on top of a starburst of bright-orange aji amarillo-spiced sauce. The steak tartare ($32), studded with several thin slices of fried garlic, came inside a circle of ultra-creamy, subtly sweet cashew butter.
While other dishes took a more simple approach to plating, they were just as flavorful, including two thick slices of medium-rare duck breast ($48) with a deeply caramelized skin over a dollop of richly hued bourbon apple purée and a heaping bowl of silky-smooth potato purée that is a must-order from the list of sides.
Younggreen, who is celiac, heads up the totally gluten-free dessert program, which leans into unexpectedly savory territory with options like red beet ice cream with yogurt whip and beet reduction ($10) and tonka bean custard ($10), which is drizzled with chocolate sauce and has the option of being topped with a scoop of caviar.
Throughout the meal, a decidedly un-stuffy soundtrack that included Sublime, the Beastie Boys and the White Stripes played. "We're pushing you," Younggreen says, "but there's comfort in it" — which is true of both the food and the ambience.
The beverage program, headed by general manager and beverage director Bruce Martin Polack, follows suit. The extensive natural and bio-dynamic wine list is heavy on varietals and regions that diners may be unfamiliar with, as is the spirits collection. "It's about giving the guest this once-in-a-lifetime experience and introducing them to things they should be drinking," Martin Polack notes.
Brian De Souza (left) and Syd Younggreen met while working in a restaurant in New York City.
Bird Tree Productions
On Friday and Saturday nights, though, El Mercado will act as the entry point for the Guest, which the couple expects to launch in October or November. The tasting-menu-only concept will continue what Younggreen and De Souza created at their home, "a three-hour affair" where you "let us take you on a journey," Younggreen says.
Walking into El Mercado, diners will see a display of the ingredients being highlighted that evening. From there, they'll be led out one door and through another into an art-filled hallway, then enter the Guest's 22-seat dining room, which has direct access to the kitchen. Meals here will be personally hosted by Younggreen and Martin Polack for an intimate experience that's completely separate from the Regular.
"I really do think that all three [concepts] feed off each other and complement each other, and serve different purposes, different clientele, different moods," Younggreen notes.
But even on its own (for now), the Regular is a standout. "Every single thing that you're looking at here has been hand-selected. Every song, every fork, every spoon, every chair, every flower. Everything," De Souza says. "You can also see that in the food, and in how the team works together."
"Running a restaurant comes with challenges, but this is what we love to do," Younggreen concludes. "There's a lot of reward that comes after a hard day of chaos and managing a bunch of problems. Then you have people come in here, smiling and happy and enjoying the food. That's the best."
The Regular is located at 1432 Market Street and is open from 5 p.m. to close Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit theregulardenver.com.
