EDITOR’S NOTE: It all started when food writer Ellen Sweets picked up a colorful little book called “Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth,” thinking she would write a short review.
But fellow writer Jack Cox overheard us talking about the author: “Tucker Shaw? He used to babysit my kids.” So the 3-inch brief became a longer interview with the former Denverite who photographed every single thing he ate for one year.
When former critic Kyle Wagner moved on, we invited Tucker back to the town where he grew up playing tennis in Washington and Observatory parks. He moved away right after high school.
After 16 years in New York City, he was ready to return. We’ll see if Denver’s dining scene is ready for him.
-Kristen Browning-Blas
The last time I lived in Denver, back in the ’80s, there were about four restaurants in town: Tante Louise, where your parents would go on anniversaries; Cafe Giovanni, where you might take your prom date if only you could afford the $11 entrees; and The Rattlesnake Club, the ne plus ultra of Front Range dining that I never got to visit until it was thrashing through rigor mortis down in Cherry Creek someplace.
And then there was The Buckhorn Exchange, est. 1893. At once the most Colorado of restaurants and the most exotic eatery in town, it had been there forever, like a bizarre, stubborn barfly who just wouldn’t leave his stool – or change his shirt.
Thank God it’s still here. I loved it then, and I love it now. Even though (or perhaps especially because) The Buckhorn Exchange is a pretty creepy place.
At first glance, this log ride of a restaurant seems more theme-park attraction than dining hall. Wild West artifacts are packed into every corner. Vintage guns and waxy figures of Buffalo Bill and his crew entice and threaten. Signed celebrity headshots line the walls, from Ronald Reagan to The Smothers Brothers to Alan Thicke.
Yes, Alan Thicke. It’s that scary.
And then there are the dead animals. By far the most remarkable aspect of the Buckhorn’s décor is taxidermic: More than 500 stuffed deer, elk, bear, moose, boar, and fowl stare down from the walls at the red and white checked tablecloths below. (At least, that’s the number the Buckhorn quotes. It feels like an underestimate.) Fur, antlers and glass eyeballs are everywhere. This place must be haunted.
But you’re here to eat. And the newsprint menu (with translations in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and pictograph) promises that you will, heartily.
The wait staff, thankfully not dressed up to match the Wild West theme or forced to say things like “Howdy do?” are as straightforward and direct as they must have been back in the (1893) day. They’re accommodating, not engaging: On one visit a patron at the next table quipped to the server about the several-dozen-ounce steaks offered on the menu, “Do you even have a plate big enough for that?”
The server smirked just enough to let it be known that she’d heard him, but answered only with “Baked potato, Saratoga chips, baked beans, wild rice blend, or garlic mash?”
On another visit, a patron ordered the German potato salad listed on the menu, only to be told, “We stopped serving that. It wasn’t any good. In fact it was terrible.”
You gotta love honest service.
Not to mention honest food. The Buckhorn will never be mistaken for serving haute cuisine, or for using the freshest ingredients in town, but somehow that’s in keeping with the spirit of the place: The food, like the restaurant itself, is imperfect, rough around the edges, visceral and proud. And scary.
Appetizers include a dish of tasty fried bits of alligator tail with a red cocktail sauce ($9.75), a curious rattlesnake and cream cheese dip (overpriced at $15.50), and allegedly smoked buffalo sausages, with supple texture and coy High Plains flavor, but not much smokiness.
And of course, Rocky Mountain oysters. (Who knew they were called perles des rocheuses in French?) A bargain at $8.50, these deep fried unmentionables, sliced into discs, breaded, and plunged into hot oil, come complete with horseradish dippin’ (apostrophe theirs) sauce.
The RMO’s must be tried, not so much for their flavor or texture (they could be easily mistaken for calamari, if they just weren’t so round) but for bragging rights.
The cornerstone of the Buckhorn’s menu is steak, which ranges in size from 8 ounces ($29 tenderloin) to 4 1/2 pounds ($170 for a New York Strip loin, intended for the whole table). The Porterhouse T-Bone ($49) is a showstopper: Luscious, flavorful, crusty, well-prepared and plenty big. (Plan on sandwiches tomorrow.)
Buffalo steaks ($36-$43), lean and strongly flavored (cedar, wheat, dust, blood), are tender and buttery. Buffalo prime rib ($31-$39) is silky and satisfying.
Elk medallions ($34-$35) have a black crust disguising deeply garnet-colored flesh. I felt the need to salute the stuffed wapiti above us with a “Hey, dude … uh, sorry about this” before each woodsy bite. There’s nothing delicate about this dish, and if you don’t like game, don’t bother.
Grilled semi-boneless quails ($20-$25) were pretty good, if a little dry in the breast. Luckily it’s plopped on a fruity pool of prickly pear and apricot glaze. (Tip: Get the elk and quail combo and dip your elk in the prickly pear glaze.)
For sides, choose cheese and beer soup instead of the Caesar salad. Rather than potatoes, order the baked beans: warm, rich, and with a quiet, but present, kick. Also good: the wild rice blend. Skip the Saratoga chips (saggy and soggy).
The only dessert to have (if you haven’t already passed out from all that meat) is the Dutch Apple Pie ($5.50). Messy, gooey, and very sweet (and for $1.50 extra it comes a la mode and drizzled in rum sauce), it requires a cup of coffee alongside.
One bummer about the Buckhorn: No beer on draft. Everything’s served in bottles.
Don’t do this: Order the salmon with red chile hollandaise ($26). It’s hopeless.
Do do this: Come for lunch. It’s much, much less expensive. Come on a cold day and order a cup of the Navy Bean Soup ($3) and Gramma Fanny’s Pot Roast Sandwich ($8.75), the best lunch bet on the menu (ask for extra gravy). Or come on a hot day, sit upstairs at the Roofgarten, and saw your way through a smokehouse cheeseburger ($8.75) with a savory pickle relish. Also worth trying: the Dutch Lunch ($10.95), a busy sampler of soup, bratwurst, pork ribs, beef brisket and coleslaw.
Do this too: Come early or stay late and have a whiskey at the bar upstairs, where live Western music flows most nights and the first liquor license ever issued in the state hangs over the bar.
It would be easy to dismiss the Buckhorn Exchange as an Epcot-like shrine of Wild West kitsch. But the Buckhorn is too old for that. It has well outlasted any of the earnestness or irony that might have peppered its history. It is, impossibly, real.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
*** | The Buckhorn Exchange
Western/Game
1000 Osage St., 303-534-9505|***
Atmosphere: Casual dining amid Wild West memorabilia, including vintage firearms and stuffed animal heads.
Service: No-nonsense, straightforward and knowledgeable about unusual cuisine.
Wine list: Small wine list, bottled beer, cocktails.
Dinner entrees: $18-$49. Shared steak entrees from $62 to $170.
Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5:30-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5:30-10 p.m. Friday; 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; 5-9 p.m. Sunday
Details: All major credit cards accepted; parking lot; wheelchair accessible; reservations recommended, lively bar upstairs.
Three visits
Our star system:
****: Fabulous, unbelievable.
***: Very good.
**: Quite good.
*: Not bad.
No stars: Needs work.
