There are scores of nondescript restaurants dotting the edges of Denver that are difficult to tell apart.
They have names that don’t mean much, like The Walnut Shell Grille or J.T. Peanutbutter’s Pub and Grub. They occupy outsized free-standing buildings, structures much larger than their ideas. Lonely buildings, sandwiched between fast-food outposts, isolated from their neighborhoods by lonely black- topped parking lots.
Most of them are adequate but uninteresting, maybe good enough for a no-brainer dinner on can’t-cook nights, if you can’t think of anywhere else to go.
But some are a little bit better than that.
Even with a sign that juts bravely into the empty sky at the corner of Yosemite and Hampden, it’s easy to miss Citron Bistro as you fly by. The front of the building, even with its al fresco porch, is less than magnetic.
And besides, if you’re not in the far-right lane when you come around the corner, you’ll never make it into the lot.
But make the turn, because inside is a restaurant that’s more charming than its exterior by a measure, unassuming and comfortable and warm in a way that such restaurants rarely are. In a building that could feel chilly, Citron feels — with warm appointments, a multilevel dining room, a fireplace — familiar.
The food at Citron is straightforward 2008 American, with an occasional (very occasional) twist. You know, meatball sliders and flatiron steaks and calamari with pine nuts. There is no acrobatic cooking. There is nothing you haven’t seen before.
But Citron puts forth tasty versions thereof, and serves them in a relaxing, even cozy atmosphere. And in a not-quite-suburban culinary landscape so often characterized by what can generously be called mediocre, it’s worth noting when someone raises the bar, even a little.
These quiet corners of our city, not really in the city, but neither in the suburbs, are easy to forget. They’re neither here, in the downtown bustle, nor there, in the still-burgeoning suburbs. While the action happens just a few miles this way or that, these sagging corners drag, groggy.
Citron is working to wake up its corner of Denver. The place already has talent, energy, a sense of hospitality. What it needs is customers, endurance and time.
Citron Bistro
Contemporary American. Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Friday, 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. 3535 S. Yosemite St., 303-771-5800.
