Think back to the summer of 1997: “Men in Black” (the first one) in theaters. Ginger and Scary duking it out for fave Spice Girl. Dodi courting Diana. No one had even heard of Monica Lewinsky yet.
And the hottest restaurant opening was Vesta Dipping Grill on Blake Street in LoDo.
Seem like a long time ago?
It was.
Almost 10 years.
For the better part of the past decade, Vesta Dipping Grill has set a certain standard in innovative Front Range cuisine, scaling unseen heights of trendiness and garnering stacks of well-deserved critical praise.
It had a concept we had never seen before. Hipsters and foodies embraced Vesta, and LoDo hit a new level of cool.
But when the stock-in-trade is staying au courant, high-concept restaurants like Vesta inevitably face a familiar challenge: Stay edgy or risk going stale.
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The Vesta Dipping Grill, which has defined itself by its edginess, is at just such a crossroads. The concept, so specific and current in 1997, is getting dusty. And Vesta’s once razor-sharp edge is in danger of going dull.
Will Vesta adapt and experience a rebirth of its cool? Or will it take the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” tack, resting on its laurels and flirting with irrelevance?
Some of what made Vesta’s dining room so stylish back in the day holds up, particularly the massive, winding bar, which affords drinkers and diners ample room to spread out and also feel close together. The banquettes are also fun to sit in, feeling like private rooms.
The lighting, accessories and menu design, however, feel dated. The place needs a scrubdown and a fresh glaze. A brighter, bolder, cleaner look, and a few architectural shake- ups would do much to bring this urban-gritty room into the new century.
It would also cast better light on the food, which merits some inspection.
The inherent energy in Vesta’s food, which is what I first found so inspiring about it, now confounds me. The busy dishes addle my palate and muddle the message from the kitchen.
Just reading the descriptions can be dizzying. This straight off the menu: “Smoked paprika grilled shrimp, artichoke-potato fritto misto with orange saffron butter and roncal cheese, sofrito cubano, and coriander lemon preserve.”
Or: “Madras coconut milk grilled venison, chamomile sweet potatoes, ginger ale sautéed oyster mushrooms and dried cherry-butter reduction. Suggested sauces: Coriander lemon preserve, smoked pineapple marmalade, and Steuben’s chimichurri.”
Got all that?
My problem with these dishes isn’t in their ambitious complexity, even though I’m admittedly prejudiced toward simpler stuff. It’s that with all these moving parts, at least one thing inevitably goes wrong.
Often what goes wrong is Vesta’s raison d’être, its sauces.
There are dozens of sauces at Vesta. Diners choose three with each entree; mixing and matching is encouraged. Some are fruity, some savory, some searing-hot, but all have a cloying, syrupy backdrop. They are addictive and crowd-pleasing, but often hit too hard, distracting rather than enhancing the dishes they accompany.
When everything works, the sauces and the food they accompany make sensual, evocative music, a new harmony laid over a familiar song. Like when I dipped the ginger-chili seared tuna into the tamarind chipotle sauce: It was a Carribbean-Pacific calypso.
But too often, what should be harmonious comes out discordant and tinny. For example, Vesta’s harissa-roasted and grilled half chicken, a showpiece of flavorful, juicy succulence. But it’s just great as it is. Why dirty it up with spicy jerk sauce? Can’t the chicken, so beautifully cooked, be allowed to shine on its own?
Same goes for the pork tenderloin Cubano. It’s fine as it is, meaty and rich with an overlay of ham and zingy roasted pepper pickle relish. Who needs yellow pepper molé and smokey apple hot sauce?
Sure, it’s fun to taste all the sauces at the table, comparing and contrasting the ones you like best and least. But my tongue can only take so many intese flavors before it goes numb.
The sauces also distract from the sides, but this may be a good thing – Vesta’s sides frequently disappoint. For example, the potato “frito misto” that came with the shrimp appetizer was soggy and full of olive pits. And the udon noodles accompanying the tuna entree were pasty, though it was hard to tell once you dunked them in the salty-syrupy yuzu soy sauce.
There’s something tawdry and cloying about all this double-dunking at Vesta Dipping Grill, like a beautiful woman who’s wearing way too much makeup. You know she could be ethereal, if she’d just scrub off some of the paint.
Service at Vesta is competent and adequate, although the younger and more fashionable you appear to be, the more competent and adequate it is. On one visit, after we requested reading glasses to see the menu, our waiter provided them but lost all interest in us; we even had to ask permission to order entrees. Walk in sporting Gucci loafers, however, and your water glass never runs dry.
There’s no question that you have to be smart to work here: What with all those sauces to memorize, Vesta can’t afford to hire duds. But the waitstaff’s verbal enthusiasm for the food (“Awesome choice!”) can smack of disingenuousness, like they’re trying a little to hard to convince us that they – and we – are awesome too.
At its best, visiting Vesta is like a martini-studded parlor game of concentration, where you have to remember, then re-remember, all those flavors. This might be a harmless way to spend an evening if it weren’t so pricey.
Recently, I sat at the bar with a friend. Two cocktails and two appetizers, plus tax and tip, pushed us over $50. Dinner for two on another night (appetizers, entrees, desserts, and two glasses of wine apiece) clocked in at $190. A fun time? Sure. Worth the price? Maybe not.
There’s no question that the folks behind Vesta are innovators. They’ve served as an irreplaceable (and still incredibly busy) LoDo cool-magnet. The kitchen still brims with raw talent.
But unless the masterminds behind it can re-stoke the hearth, Vesta is in danger of sliding out of culinary currency, and into culinary history.
Meantime, I’m looking forward to their upcoming East 17th Avenue venture, Steuben’s, where I hope we’ll be treated to a forward-thinking, innovative restaurant experience. It should be a refreshing change from the same ’90s soundtrack we’ve been listening to for so many years.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
Vesta Dipping Grill
American
1822 Blake St., 303-296-1970
* |Good
Atmosphere: Urban-cool, low-lit space with exposed brick walls, festive banquettes, and a massive bar area. Always busy.
Service: Adequate and competent, if running on autopilot.
Wine: A decent list, Califoria-heavy with a few bottles from France, Italy, Australia, Spain and Chile. Very good martinis and other cocktails.
Plates: Small Plates, $6-$15. Entrees $18-$32.
Hours: 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday. 5-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Details: All major credit cards accepted. Metered street parking or nearby parking lots. Reservations recommended. Fun for large groups. Good bar for eating.
Five visits.
Our star system:
****: Exceptional.
***: Great.
**: Very good.
*: Good.
No stars: Needs work.
