At Cart-Driver LoHi, rosemary focaccia is served with artisan butters that rotate frequently. Depending on the time of year, you might get a French onion soup-inspired butter on one visit, a lemon and dandelion spread the next, or miso and Calabrian crisp on another.
“We love experimenting with seasonal ingredients or little leftover treasures in the kitchen,” said chef Jacob Thornton. Cart-Driver chefs pitch their ideas for the butter flavors to create unexpected renditions and highlight of-the-moment ingredients.
“I realized that something as simple as butter can really make a dish memorable,” Thornton said.
First impressions matter, and across the Front Range and beyond, chefs are using their bread service to butter guests up. Long a hallmark of French cooking, the fancy butter renaissance has now spread into kitchens of every style, becoming a vessel of creativity accompanying everything from sourdough and focaccia to tortillas, challah and Taiwanese buns.
“I would say as the artisan bread movement is becoming a bigger and bigger thing, butter is becoming more prominent,” says Cameron Baker, chef de cuisine and partner at Radicato, a modern Italian restaurant in Breckenridge.
Radicato’s focaccia arrives with cultured butters that carry a gentle tang, like an autumn version flavored with honeynut squash from Esoterra Culinary Garden. Come spring, the team plans to experiment with vivid green butters made from onions, ramps and garlic. At its sister restaurant Rootstalk, also in Breckenridge, executive chef and James Beard Award-winning chef Matt Vawter crafted a winter tasting menu last year that featured roasted chicken fat emulsified into cultured butter, then set in a chicken-shaped mold and served with crispy chicken skin during bread service.
They’re in good company. Here are six more examples of chefs in the Denver metro area who are churning out their own standout versions of butter.
Brutø’s corn butter
At Michelin-starred Brutø, the team sources Colorado corn and smokes it in the hearth so it gets a nice caramelization to it, said chef Byron Gomez. From there, itap taken off the cob and pureed, run through a fine strainer so that itap a silky, starchy puree (almost like a pudding). Then, chefs bind it with tempered butter and mold it to look like petite ears of corn. The result, he said, is a naturally sweet smoked corn butter. Itap served with the restaurantap sourdough thatap made with grains from Dry Storage, a bakery and mill in Boulder. 1801 Blake St., Denver;
BearLeek’s adorable bear-shaped butter
Cast in a cute teddy bear mold, BearLeek’s seasonal butter bear is featured alongside fluffy Japanese milk bread (shokupan), which is similar to a brioche. The bread and butter has quickly become one of the signature dishes at the RiNo restaurant that chefs Harrison Porter and Rema Maaliki opened last summer. They started with a charred leek ButterBear and are now featuring rich, caramelized burnt honey ButterBear on their fall menu. Bread service ought not be overlooked: “It signifies the beginning of a meal, the breaking of bread,” Porter said. Come spring, they’ll be leaning into bear-shaped ramp butter. The name BearLeek, after all, is inspired by the German word for ramp, bärlauch, which symbolizes renewal, growth, and new beginnings. 2611 Walnut St, Denver;
Xiquita’s jalapeño ash butter and tortillas
Meals at Chef Erasmo Casiano’s Xiquita open with a jalapeño ash butter thatap matched with fresh, warm, handmade tortillas. This is how you become acquainted with the Uptown restaurantap nixtamalization program and the in-house tortillera, who makes fresh tortillas throughout the evening at the comal adjacent to the bar. The butter is crafted from the ash that is created from the restaurantap charred vegetables and chilies and is whipped into their butter to impart a deep, smoky flavor. 500 E 19th Ave, Denver;
Major Tom’s challah with a tahini and za’atar butter
Major Tom serves challah with a tahini and za’atar butter inspired by the Middle Eastern restaurants where sous chef Trinity Romero worked in New York. “Bread and butter is a combination as old as time,” Romero said. “To me, there’s nothing tastier than a simple, well-baked loaf of bread paired with an exciting flavored butter.” She’s also thinking up ways to incorporate produce from The Beckon Farm into the next rendition of bread and butter service, whether itap using sweet carrots, alliums, or aromatic herbs that are grown for the restaurant. 2843 Larimer St., Denver;
Pig and Tiger’s fermented black bean butter
For their take on bread and butter, chefs Darren Chang and Travis Masar serve baked mantou (a traditional Taiwanese bun) with fermented black bean butter. Mantou is typically steamed, but at Pig and Tiger, itap baked and served as pull-apart buns. The butter is made with douchi, a traditional Chinese ingredient made from dried, salted and fermented black soy beans. Think of it as a Chinese caper, but with the complexity of deeply aged cheese. 2200 California St., Denver,
La Rocca Rossa’s citrus-jade butter
At La Rocca Rossa in Morrison, chef Rand G. Packer brings Asian-inspired techniques to Italian culinary traditions, and the citrus jade butter is a prime example. Light, bright citrus notes from lemon and orange zest lift a floral jade pesto, along with roasted shallots, champagne vinegar, Italian parsley, olive oil, and a finishing sprinkle of Persian blue salt. The butter is paired with the house-made garlic rosemary focaccia, and is an ideal start to a meal here. 209 Bear Creek Ave., Morrison,
