Somewhere between a cheeseburger with pickle and onion and a foie gras au torchon sits The Broker Restaurant Downtown, a beloved Denver institution that has been dishing up its own brand of nostalgic dining with a side of charm and an extra helping of friendliness for more than 30 years.
Since it opened in 1972, the downtown Broker has spawned three others: the Airport Broker, the DTC Broker and the Boulder Broker Inn. While they all have their charms (or not), none quite matches the predictable comfort of the original, like a favorite old aunt who always smells of chocolate-chip cookies.
The space has a lot to do with that. The downtown Broker sits in the vaults of the old Denver National Bank building, circa 1903, which has retained its giant metal vault door, its leather booths where bank customers visited with their safety deposit boxes, and its sense of timelessness, a true asset where fine dining is concerned.
The rooms glow with warmth, with the cozy booths sitting beneath walls the color of fall aspen leaves and the lighting flickering off glass partitions and the antique furnishings made from antique Japanese cherry wood.
Sitting in this cozy, made-for-special-occasions atmosphere is an amazingly diverse group of folks, from young couples nervously getting to know each other to large families and business get-togethers. You might even run into a nice couple with two small, well-behaved children, or an elderly man wearing pressed denim jeans and sneakers so new and white they look like peppermint toothpaste. This is fine dining for the Everyman.
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All of that may be why owner Ed Novak has been able to stay afloat through several economic fluctuations, times when better restaurants went belly-up and others stuck around by throwing out the baby with the dishwater to try to meet the changing times.
For the most part, the Broker has stuck with the tried and true. Sure, here and there things like sesame-crusted ahi tuna ($34) and a Southwestern-style beef Wellington ($37) have been added to keep things interesting, but such standards as tournedos Oscar ($49) and prime rib ($36) make up the bulk of the menu, and those are done as textbook as possible, with no chances taken.
But that also means no corners are cut, either. The complimentary, peel-your-own shrimp bowl is still a pound and a half of large-sized shrimp, adrift on a sea of ice chips in a large bowl. Wedges of lemon and housemade cocktail sauce promise more flavor, but these crustaceans are so fresh and sweet-fleshed, they don’t need a thing.
The other surprise is that although the prices are up there, they reflect a full meal. So in addition to the shrimp, soup or salad and a dessert are included, as well as freshly baked bread. There are other options, of course, including a top-quality carpaccio ($8), fat, bready salmon croquettes ($6) and oysters Rockefeller ($6). No funky chipotle-sparked sauce here: These bivalves arrive according to spec, with a topping of buttery spinach and breadcrumbs, each pliant little bauble completely covered and just warm enough to keep it soft beneath its crumbly blanket.
The soup choices include a deeply flavored French onion soup, with an ideal balance of bread, onions, broth and cheese so that every bite down to the bottom of the bowl can include some of each, and a thick, creamy clam chowder that sports plenty of whole, tender clams. On the salad side, a sharply garlicky Caesar can be had for an extra $4, but there’s no reason to stray from the house, a pile of greens so large you want to jump in it like fall leaves, and the creamy peppercorn dressing is as feisty as an elderly man wearing jeans and brand-spanking-new sneakers to a fancy restaurant.
The same can’t be said of the entrees, which may have been seasoned with a feather duster but still have enough flavor to keep the palate interested. Roasted duckling ($29) comes slicked with a sour cherry glaze that makes the skin extra-crispy, and chicken Chardonnay ($31) puts a crust of breading so thin it’s like dust on a coffee table onto a bone-in (smart move) chicken breast topped with provolone cheese and a mushroom-heavy cream sauce.
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In old cookbooks, next to the recipes for traditional beef Wellington ($44) and tournedos Oscar there should be photos from the Broker. The Wellington is smeared with a mushroom duxelle and wrapped in puff pastry, and danged if they didn’t get the thing golden on the outside while keeping it pretty rare within. And the crabmeat-topped tournedos are like yin and yang for classic-sauce lovers, with one covered in bordelaise and one in bearnaise.
On the other hand, sometimes that unwillingness to veer from the straight and narrow leaves the diner wanting. Buffalo is usually so rightly cooked no more than medium-rare because of its low fat content, but sometimes a little further cooking can firm up a somewhat blubby texture. But there was no way we could budge chef Tom Schommer, who has been cooking at Novak restaurants for a decade and at this particular Broker for the past six years, from sending out our buffalo prime rib cooked medium ($38), which meant a juicier cut, but also a less appealingly textured one.
No such complaints with the desserts, since they were cooked exactly the way anyone would want them. A huge wedge of cheesecake, which can come with a drizzle of caramel sauce or a fruit topping, was dense and sweet, and an even larger wedge of moist chocolate cake featured a thick layer of icing that caused two young ladies to issue proprietary threats.
Out with the old and in with the new may be an enduring theme as the new year arrives, but the downtown Broker is a little bit of both – and that’s a dish that never goes out of style.
