Like everything else in Denver, we were blown away by the restaurants. As in, “should we move here?” blown away. Here’s my round up of our favorite spots in Denver and Vail:
Denver
Euclid Hall Bar and Kitchen — $$/$$$, LoDo
Colorado is known for its microbrews, and so Euclid Hall is a must-stop during your stay, mostly for their exhaustive beer list. Tucked away on a quiet stretch of 14th Street, just past the twinkle light and boutique strewn Larimer Street, the restaurant is housed in a brick, two story former meeting house for Denver Bureau of Charity, a free health clinic for the poor.
Today, the lofty interior is all brick, exposed steel beams, and Edison light bulbs. The menu leans German, with schnitzel, house-made sausages, slaws, pickles, and mustards. My cheese spatzle was delicious, and Dave’s grilled pile of meat was something to behold.
Snooze — $$, Union Station/Downtown
A 50’s, atomic-age themed diner in the deserted northwest corner of downtown, Snooze is a Denver favorite. Everyone you meet will tell you to go to Snooze for brunch. I thought I’d beat the brunch crowds by heading over on a Friday morning. I was sorely mistaken. After an hour’s wait, for just this party of one, I finally got a seat at the counter with a sunshine yellow mug full of coffee.
I’m not going to lie, I came for the pancake menu. I chose one Sweet Potato Pancake with homemade caramel, pecans, and ginger butter in addition to a Red Velvet Pancake. No, they aren’t fooling around. The Sweet Potato Pancake was complex, nutty, spicy perfection, and not even too sweet for breakfast (from the starting point of ordering a caramel drizzled pancake for breakfast, that is.) I had less luck with the Red Velvet Pancake, which had a distinctly bitter, caramelized burnt taste to it, even though it didn’t appear to be overcooked at all. It no longer appears on their menu, though, and that’s really for the best.
Duo — $$$, The Highlands
Hidden in the leafy, Victorian Highlands neighborhood, Duo is everything you want a local bistro to be. The restaurant’s warm dining room, separated from the bar through a wall of salvaged window frames, would feel particularly cozy and inviting during a Denver winter.
Our excitement kicked off with a can of Oskar Blues’ Ten Fidy, a molasses thick beer that our beer aficionado friend told us to keep an eye out for during our trip. The menu is all seasonal/local/sustainable (of course). Dave’s fresh snap pea ravioli were sweet, ripe, and still crunchy with freshness. The flavors of my stuffed artichoke jumped off the plate — a lot of flavor, all due to incredibly fresh vegetables and ingredients.
We skipped dessert, though, in order to check out…
Little Man Ice Cream — $, The Highlands
This ice cream shop, housed in a 28’ tall milk jug, might also be a must-stop on your trip. Perched on a slope in the Highlands neighborhood, Little Man Ice Cream makes all of its own ice cream in a small batch process. Which makes it easy to switch flavors up, seemingly on a daily – if not hourly — basis.
On our trip, we had roughly 20 flavors of ice cream, gelato, and sorbet to choose from, with flavors like Salted Oreo, Chocolate Pretzel, Orange Creamsicle, and Crème Fraiche. I opted for a smooth, luscious Salted Caramel/Mexican Chocolate combination. Dave went for the Chocolate Banana.
The line might be long, but Little Man Ice Cream sweetens the wait slightly with a house band playing on the patio. With the lights of downtown Denver off in the distance and music reverberating through the neighborhood, it was the perfect cap to our evening.
D Bar Desserts — $$/$$$, City Park West
My Holy Grail of Dining Destinations is a dessert restaurant, serving late into the night. Because who doesn’t want to keep the evening going with molten chocolate cake and a glass of vintage port?
My experience with dessert bars (and trust that I go to at least one in every city I’ve written about, including SF, and no I haven’t written about one yet), is that the desserts never really measure up to what you’d get at the restaurant you just left. Dry, over sweet, ill-thought-out, with forced/weird ice cream pairings. Dessert is tough.
D Bar Desserts exceeded all expectations. They need to franchise. Or at least open a sister shop in San Francisco. My “hand pie” – a flash fried blackberry pie served with crème anglaise and vanilla ice cream – was a wonderful blend of tangy blackberries; buttery, flaky crust; and smooth cream. I also picked up a few macaroons to eat back at the hotel, and each was airy and perfectly crisp and packed with flavor.
The restaurant sits on a leafy block in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood, with lovely gated-off sidewalk patio seating. The restaurant does serve non-dessert foods, so this is an ideal spot if you’re headed to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in City Park.
The Kitchen — $$$, LoDo
The Kitchen got its start in Boulder, where it is thoroughly beloved, and recently opened in the LoDo neighborhood just north of downtown. I’ve read mixed reviews about this spot, but I’m here to report that we had a delicious and refined light lunch here on our way out of town.
The décor is a checklist of current design fads: flaking plaster covering brick walls, pin-tucked baby blue leather booths, steel Marais café chairs and stools, and modern glass orb chandeliers. It’s chic, and precisely what you want for your fancy finger food lunch.
Our burrata and heirloom tomato bruschetta was light and refreshing, with the burrata oozing off the plate. My mussels..were mussels. Cooked well, chewy, in a light herbed broth. Dave was very pleased with his smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. All in all, a successful, laid back lunch.
Places I didn’t get to
[I usually don’t include this section in my food write-ups, but Denver was the first city I’ve left wishing I’d gotten to more restaurans. So many other places to try! So little time.
So, if you’re headed to Denver, you might also want to try:]
Domo — Country-style Japanese food served on an outdoor patio in an industrial lot? I have no idea, but people swear by it. It was closed when we tried to go for lunch, so call ahead to make sure they’re open.
Fruition — A seasonal/local/ingredient-focused restaurant with award winning chefs.
Biker Jim’s Dogs — Gourmet sausages and hot dogs
Marczyk Fine Foods — The name says it all. They’re supposed to have an excellent meat counter.
ChoLon Bistro — Modern twists on traditional Asian cuisine, in the cute LoDo neighborhood.
Watercourse Foods — I actually did go here, but thought maybe I had an unrepresentative (over salted and over rosemaried) meal. It’s all vegetarian, and it came highly recommended by a lot of people.
Vail
Garfinkel’s — $$, Lionshead Vail Village
There’s nothing fancy about Garfinkel’s, and I’m pretty sure that’s how we all like it.
With a massive back porch abutting the ski slopes in Lionshead Vail Village, Garfinkel’s promises excellent people watching and views. (I thought it was a bit suspect that people would sit on the porch in the dead of winter, but Zach tells me that under 10 pounds of ski gear, you barely notice the cold.) On a warm, blue-skied day in the late Spring, with no crowds, we got terrific views of Aspen-covered Vail Moutain.
The menu is long, in the way that pub/diner menus can be long. Mozzarella sticks, artichoke dip, French dip sandwiches – that kind of place. But, it’s all about how well it’s prepared, and my fish and chips were great. Perfectly battered, fried, golden and crunchy. The fish was still delicate under it all. The cole slaw was sweet and tart, without being cloying or mushy. Just good food.
Larkspur — $$$/$$$$, Vail Village
Vail typically caters to a wealthier clientele in the winter months, and the village has a slew of fine dining restaurants to show for it.
For the rest of us, the joy of Vail in the off season is that some of these restaurants severely dock their prices. (Pick up the Vail Daily to check out which restaurants are having specials during your stay.)
Larkspur is all muted sage, wood, and fireplaces, with an extremely warm and welcoming staff. The menu has a wide array of classic fine dining dishes — veal scallopini shares space with almond crusted arctic char and a new york strip — so it is sure to please nearly anyone that comes through the door.
I do think the prices are inflated, even for fine dining, but I suppose that comes with the resort village territory. Our entire meal, including wine, was half off — and the three of us thought that was actually a fair price.
Minturn Saloon — $$/$$$, Minturn
Just in the next town over, Minturn Saloon serves up a unique menu of Colorado barbecue via Mexico. No worries — I also didn’t realize that Colorado had its own version of Mexican food. It does. And it’s fantastic.
Minturn Saloon has been around for a while, since the mid-1800’s and long before Vail existed. In the winter, it serves back country skiiers, heading down from Vail on the “Minturn Mile”. Inside, it’s a hunter green ode to cowboy pub kitsch. The walls are covered in it. There’s the John Wayne clock, John Wayne movie poster, John Wayne signed photograph (“How is The Saloon, Bob — Hope to get up there soon”), and John Wayne themed Minturn Saloon t-shirts (“if John Wayne don’t drink it; we don’t make it.”) Posters of Gerald “Jerry” Ford, a local hero, also fight for space on the hunter green walls.
And the food? As Dave said, “it’s f–ing good.” The highlight at the table was his Pato Velacruz — duck breasts cooked “south of the border” style with a homemade red pepper jelly and sweet green jalapeno jelly. The fried ice cream, rolled in coconut, and served with agave nectar was downright fantastic. Surprisingly, gut-shatteringly fantastic.
The prices here are also steep, so watch out. The casual pub decor and booths don’t necessarily translate to a cheap meal.
Places I didn’t get to
Bully Ranch Restaurant — This is a Vail go-to for Zach and family, that we ran out of time to try.
Silver Dollar Saloon — Actually in Leadville, CO, I really wanted to check this institution out but Zach convinced us to go to the Minturn Saloon instead.
Check out other area spots on my Vail/Glenwood Springs Food Map.
