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4 days ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
There are signs of life at the former home of longtime soup dumpling favorite Lao Wang Noodle House, which closed on South Federal Boulevard in February after a 25-year run. You won’t find xiaolongbao or dan dan noodles, though. Instead, a new restaurant called El Pulgarcito de Bukele is now serving pupusas and other Salvadoran specialties.
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2 weeks ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
Awards have been abundant for Frasca Food and Wine and its founders, Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan McKinnon-Patterson, since the Boulder restaurant’s launch in 2004. The James Beard Foundation has been particularly generous (Frasca is a finalist in this year’s Outstanding Restaurant category and has won three previous awards), and there are also the Michelin star it received in 2023 and 2024.
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3 weeks ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
When Rioja chef and co-owner Jennifer Jasinski arrived in Denver from Santa Barbara in 2000, she was confronted with the prevailing culinary stereotype that Denver was a cowtown. “People told me straight out, ‘You can’t serve fish—it’s a steak and potato town,’ ” she recalls. Undeterred, she challenged that assumption from the start with dishes like monkfish wrapped in pancetta.
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4 weeks ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
After a three-year run, local food delivery service Pinemelon is throwing in the apron. The Denver-based company was launched by founder and CEO Alex Lee in 2022 after the pandemic made grocery home delivery a booming business. His goal? To differentiate the business from other services by providing a range of local and organic products in addition to brand-name staples.
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1 month ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
The bar at Restaurant Olivia stocks spirits from all around the world, but what sets the Italian eatery’s cocktails apart are house-made flourishes using ingredients you might not expect in a mixed drink—like syrup made from kabocha squash. In addition to providing unique flavor, this syrup and other ingredients like it are part of an overall mission to find uses for fruit and vegetable trimmings otherwise destined for the trash.
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1 month ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
My home neighborhood, Harvey Park, is a wonderful place to live and a quiet, almost suburban environment where pedestrians and cyclists are common and dog-walking competes with yard-sale shopping as the unofficial sport. But it’s not exactly a hotbed of culinary activity. Even looking west and south toward busy Bear Valley and Sheridan Boulevard, the dining options are few and far between, and it’s a rare occasion when something new opens.
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1 month ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
Tommy Lee’s Hop Alley is no stranger to glowing reviews and accolades, even in this magazine. But for the Chinese restaurant’s staff, it still hit like a bombshell when it was listed as a 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist in January for, of all things, Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program. “I thought Hop Alley’s wine program was important to maybe 75 people in Denver, but to be recognized on a national level was very surprising,” says wine director Jacob Roadhouse.
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2 months ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
A big announcement came from the James Beard Foundation on Wednesday as the New York City–based culinary organization named its 2025 Chef and Restaurant Award nominees in 14 food, beverage, and hospitality categories. The foundation introduced three new categories this year—Best New Bar, Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service, and Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service—in honor of its 35th anniversary.
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2 months ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation |Antony Bruno
If après-ski is the party you enjoy after a day of skiing, what do you call the party at the end of the ski season? In the Vail Valley, one strong contender is the Taste of Vail. The 34-year-old food and wine festival takes place April 2–5, just two weeks before Vail Mountain’s projected closing day of April 20.
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2 months ago | 
5280.com | Mark Antonation
Eggs are an almost infinitely versatile cooking ingredient, providing richness, leavening, flavor, texture, and color to baked goods, sauces, and desserts of all kinds. On their own, they can be fried, poached, scrambled, omeletized (please let this be the next addition to Merriam-Webster), or boiled in the shell to runny or firm. They’re also expensive right now—and tricky to track down at local grocery stores.
