The other day, our editors raised an interesting question. “What is Denver lacking?” they asked us to consider. “What does Denver need?”
They were talking, I think, about things like more accessible social services, or more extensive public transportation systems, or perhaps a winning baseball team.
But I, naturally, thought in terms of food. And while Denver has much more to offer than most cities its size, I was able to come up with a wish list without too much trouble.
Here it is:
More French restaurants, and at least one super-fancy, but totally contemporary and exclusively French restaurant. The kind of place that requires men to wear jackets, serves inordinately expensive food and forces diners to sit through six or seven courses of exquisite food. A once-a-year place where your friends take you for an extravagant birthday, or where your husband hands over a diamond bracelet with dessert. I want blanquette de veau, poitrine d’Agneau, and quenelles of every description. Food that I would never – could never – make at home, and the wine and service that goes with it.
More high-end Mexican food. We’ve got Tamayo and Zengo and Tula and Chama and Ocotillo, and a few others, but with a Mexican-American population as large as Denver’s, we should have 20 or 30 boutique restaurants serving modern, urban, distinctive, regional Mexican food that isn’t drowned in 14 cheeses or sub-par green chile. (Don’t get me wrong, I love a throw-down Mexican meal as much as anyone, but there’s so much of Mexico’s sophisticated cuisine that we’re being deprived of.)
More fast, independent Asian lunch options. We need at least one killer lunchtime ramen bar downtown, and many more pho and banh mi shops. There’s no better working lunch than a fast, hot bowl of ramen in a restorative, nutritious broth, packed with vegetables. You slurp it down, wipe your chin, and go. Denver has a few good ramen shops (especially Oshima Ramen at 7400 E. Hampden Ave.), a few good banh mi shops (like Ba Le Sandwich at 1044 S. Federal Blvd.) and lots of places for pho (my favorite is Pho Duy at 945 S. Federal). But there should be more fast, fresh Asian lunch spots in the downtown and Tech Center areas, where people need more working lunch options.
More bakeries specializing in bread. This one doesn’t just go for Denver, it goes for the whole country. There is no greater pleasure than fresh-baked bread. Not the kind they make in those big corporate kitchens, but the kind you find at some of our local bakeries like Dolce Sicilia in Wheat Ridge, Les Delices de Paris on Leetsdale Drive, and Adagio Bakery in Park Hill. One great baker per neighborhood is not enough; we need more choices. Every neighborhood should have several competing bakeries, and they shouldn’t just make sweets and cookies. They should make good old-fashioned bread, daily.
More people eating out early in the week. Here’s where you and I, the customers, come in. One of the most frustrating things about Denver for obsessive diners like me is the dearth of restaurants, especially neighborhood independent restaurants, that stay open on Monday night. It doesn’t take a genius to see why places tend to shut down on Mondays; at the few restaurants that are open, there aren’t many customers. This is too bad, because stressful Monday is a fabulous night to eat out. But it’s up to us. If we start showing up, they’ll start opening their doors.
More good pizza by the slice. There are piles of pizzerias around town, but not enough of them are good. The runaway success of Virgilio’s in Lakewood is encouraging; he throws an excellent pie and is doing amazing business, especially at lunch. His pizza, made by hand with fresh ingredients, is plenty fast, but it’s nothing like junk food. Pizza can be, and should be, a healthful, easy lunch, and it should much more plentiful in Denver that it is right now.
I could add to my list, like more and better real farmers markets, more access to endemic Colorado food in restaurants (where are the local potatoes and quinoa being served these days?), and much better butter at nearly every fine-dining restaurant in town.
What’s on your wish list? E-mail me: dining@denverpost.com and let me know.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
More online: Find an archive of Food Court columns. denverpost.com/foodcourt
