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by: Janet Day
Colorado’s culinary history starts with whatever could survive the state’s climate and terrain of semi-arid plains, snow-covered mountains and cold valleys: game, cattle and sheep, grains, and hardy vegetables or legumes.
A couple hundred years later, Colorado is expanding its mark on the culinary map with innovative chefs turning out eye-popping meals in Denver’s trendiest restaurants (Table 6, Mel’s); small producers niche-marketing everything from organic meats to artisanal cheeses (MouCo soft cheeses, Haystack Mountain goat cheese); and beverage masters creating lush red wines, microbrews and organic spirits.
Any Colorado food adventure begins in Denver, where hot chefs are at work in the trendy LoDo section of downtown, stylish Cherry Creek neighborhood and vibrant west side, including the funky streets of the Highlands. For some fun Asian/Mexican fusion and cutting-edge cocktails, head to Zengo in the new Riverfront area. The tiny space on East 6th Avenue that is Fruition has become one of the top restaurants in the U.S. West. Across the South Platte River, the Highlands Café almost single-handedly turned that neighborhood into a must-go restaurant stop and spawned new neighbors such as the nouvelle Italian trattoria, Stella.
But the old west isn’t lost. The Buckhorn Exchange has been serving up traditional Colorado fare in downtown Denver for more than 100 years – the menu’s heavy on game dishes and beef. The Fort also offers elaborate game dishes (try the buffalo hump or elk chops) in its historic building in the foothills southwest of Denver. For a history and taste of Rocky Mountain oysters – sliced, fried bull’s testicles – head up to the tiny town of Severance and Bruce’s Restaurant.
The vast area east of Denver will give you a good idea of where your food comes from, but for great ideas about how it can taste, head west.
Boulder holds tight to its college town and hippie roots with a variety of natural food restaurants, but also offers some of the region’s best-rated, high-end event dining (L'Atelier, Frasca). Nearby Louisville prides itself on its Italian railroad and mine-worker history, a past that shines through in the community’s many Italian restaurants.
Heading west on Interstate 70 to the dozens of ski resort towns provides a choice of luxurious mountain dining options, including Beano’s Cabin at Beaver Creek, Sweet Basil in Vail, and dozens of top offerings in the Aspen area.
Farther west, Colorado’s wine industry is taking off. Once home only to fruit-based wines or small vineyards, the Palisade area has become known for its growing wineries and complex reds. The Grand Valley, as the area is known, is a great summer stop for some of the sweetest peaches in the west, apricots, berries and, in the fall, crisp tart apples to rival Washington State.
Beer plays a big role in culinary Colorado. There’s the Coors Brewery in Golden, of course, and a Budweiser facility near Fort Collins – both offer tours and tastings. But the state’s pioneer spirit took over in the early 1990s with a micro-brew boom. Denver’s current mayor, John Hickenlooper, founded the Wynkoop Brewpub, one of the nation’s original micro-breweries. Today, dozens of brewpubs dot the state.
Colorado’s southwestern corner draws from Mexican influences for its food, and with its warmer climate grows a cornucopia of produce. The high San Luis Valley on the New Mexico border grows almost as many potatoes as Idaho and is one of the nation’s only quinoa-growing areas. Dove Creek, in the far southwestern corner of the state, calls itself the Pinto Bean Capital of the World. And Olathe, south of Grand Junction, celebrates its candy-like Olathe Sweet Corn crop every summer.
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Mt. Fuji | [Denver - Colorado - United States] |
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Green Bean Cafe/Winter Park Market | [Winter Park - Colorado - United States] |
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Pica Peru Culinary Vacations | [Lima - --- - Peru] |
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Verso Cellars | [Winter Park - Colorado - USA] |
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Zunikitchen | [Denver - CO - USA] |
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Z's Korner Kitchen | [Arvada - CO - USA] |
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Zpizza | [Denver - CO - USA] |
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Zona's Tamales | [Denver - CO - USA] |
by: Janet Day
If you plant it, they will pay to pick it.
Colorado’s farmers, ranchers and vineyards have learned what states like California and New York discovered a long time ago: people will pay to pick, plow or package food products at their source or spend all of their annual vacation time learning how to make cheese, crush grapes or shear sheep. Agritourism in Colorado is booming.
Researchers at Colorado State University in Fort Collins call it a $2.2 billion industry with more than 13 million people participating in some farm-related activity in the state in 2007.
You can go to the wineries around Palisade to pick grapes and taste a glass of the fruits of past pickings. You can watch, shoot or eat game birds at Eastern Colorado’s vast ranches, spin the wool of freshly shorn sheep in the southern part of the state, pick your own produce in fields on the fringes of the Denver metropolitan area and spend $2,000 a week to work as hard and get as dirty as a real ranch hand at the cattle ranches of northern mountains.
Berry Patch Farms in Brighton, a farming community northeast of Denver, provides the full farm experience with tours, pick-your-own fields of organic berries and vegetables, hay rides and slow-food cooking classes, all with a nod to farming’s heritage. The farm also sells organic prepared products and has picnic tables to enjoy it all on the spot.
Haystack Mountain Farms near Boulder offers tours to cover all that goes into making spectacular goat cheese. Our Side of the Divide Farm, Ranch and Vineyard Tours near Delta can customize a farm- and food-related vacation in Colorado’s fertile Grand Valley, including a winery B&B stay, wine tasting, fruit picking and stop by a farm-related museum.
Buffalo Groves in the eastern part of Colorado lets you get up close and personal with the big hairy beasts while East Pines Trails in the state’s southwestern corner offers full farm vacations and even lets you breed, raise and process your own beef. If you don’t want to know your sirloin quite that personally, the Diamond-D-Bar Ranch in the south central San Luis Valley lets guests participate in cattle drives where there is more bovine anonymity.
You can enjoy horseback vacations at the Many Ponies Outfit and go home with great composted manure to treat your own gardens. The Craig Ranch about an hour east of Denver serves farm-fresh food at its B&B for people and offers a Horse Motel for equine visitors. Ewe Bet Ranch lets you adopt a sheep and care for it at the ranch just a short drive north of Denver. They also offer wool and meat products, shearing and other instruction.
That’s all in addition to the many winery tours, tasting rooms, farmer’s markets and produce stands around the state that let you get in touch with your dinner’s roots.
To contact individual operations:
Berry Patch Farms -- 303-659-5050
Haystack Mountain Farms -- 720-494-8714
Our Side of the Divide -- 970-874-9532
Buffalo Groves -- 303-621-1111
East Pines Trails -- 970-565-6439
Diamond-D-Bar Ranch -- 719-657-2293
Many Ponies Outfit -- 970-728-6278
Craig Ranch -- 719-775-2658
Ewe Bet Ranch -- 970-635-2379
by: Janet Day
The food-friendly Platte Park neighborhood of Denver for decades was overshadowed by Washington Park, the pricier, trendier area to the north.
For years, Platte Park’s two-block retail and restaurant district along South Pearl Street was home to empty storefronts, a few small retail outlets, burger-and-beer saloons and a convenience store. At the same time, Wash Park’s commercial strip, South Gaylord Street, drew diners from around Denver with comfortable neighborhood bars, affordable restaurants and culinary boutiques.
What a difference a few years makes. South Gaylord’s dining scene still rocks as University of Denver students, neighborhood residents and the after-work crowd enjoy the bar scene, but South Pearl has grown into a calm, relaxing area to enjoy the funky charm of a belligerently independent coffee shop, order some of city’s best sushi, participate in wine tastings, shop in gourmet markets or stroll through the summertime farmer’s market.
The neighborhood’s food anchors are Sushi Den and the Pearl Street Grill, both of which gained reputations in the yuppie days of the 1980s and maintained their clientele as other restaurants opened, struggled and closed in the ensuing decade. The two restaurants relied on consistently good food and word-of-mouth to build acclaim.
The Pearl Street Grill remains in its original location and continues to serve solid pub food. Two happy hours – one early evening and one late night – bring in the regulars as does the weekend brunch on the cozy brick-walled patio
Sushi Den, one of Denver’s original and still one of its finest sushi restaurants, has expanded or moved a couple times, remaining loyal to the neighborhood that built its reputation. Its current location is just across an intersection from the original. Sushi Den continues to order fish flown directly to Denver from Japan’s largest fish market. The Zagat survey rates the restaurant as one of best Japanese restaurants in the United States.
But people don’t live by raw fish or pub grub alone. Sushi Den’s success and The Pearl Street Grill's staying power led to other successful restaurant developments in the area in the past decade.
Stella’s Coffeehouse is a celebration of what a coffee shop should be – independent and at times weird, with local artists’ work on the walls, local musicians performing in the evening, dog water dishes on the porch, free reading materials and an eclectic array of customers enjoying the non-chain drinks, pastries and vibe.
Budapest Bistro has been serving traditional and modern Hungarian dishes on South Pearl for more than a decade. The goulash on a cold winter day is a wonderful thing. The neighborhood also is home to a martini bar, wine tasting/education room, old-style roadhouse, comfort-food tavern and shops specializing in hand-dipped chocolates, crepes, cakes, gelato or cinnamon rolls. Pajama Baking Company opened in early May 2008 with shelves full of artisanal breads, cookies, sandwiches, compound butters, pestos, hand-made ice cream and Colorado specialty foods.
by: Janet Day
Take a tour of wine country without having to go to Provence or Napa. Colorado has more than 60 wineries creating award-winning products ranging from rich Merlots to crisp Chardonnays, and many of them are easy stops right off of the state’s main roadways such as Interstate 70.
Colorado’s Wine Industry Development Board has made it more fun and more fascinating to visit the state’s wineries with the creation of Wine Country Trails. The routes are identified by big blue road signs along the roadways. Detailed maps of the routes are available online, at any Colorado visitor’s center, winery tasting rooms around the state and some restaurants.
The Heart of Colorado Wine Country Trail takes drivers (or bicyclists) through the two American Viticultural Areas that have been designated in the state. Both the Grand Valley AVA and the West Elks AVA benefit from Western Colorado’s abundant sunshine, warm days, cool nights and low humidity favored by wine grapes.
Combining the Grand Valley AVA and West Elks AVA into one big figure-eight driving tour is a great way to spend a day or two visiting the state’s oldest and largest wineries in Palisades; enjoying the art galleries of the Surface Creek wineries or sampling the exceptional reds at Plum Creek Cellars, Colorado’s most award-winning winery.
There are similar tours through the state’s smaller wine regions. The Front Range Wine Trail travels from the Trail Ridge Winery near Rocky Mountain National Park south through Denver/Boulder tasting rooms to a winery in the Holy Cross Abbey near Royal Gorge. The Rocky Mountain Wine Trail travels through tasting rooms, cellars and galleries in ski resort towns. Even the Four Corners area is producing wines amid its Native American ruins and natural wonders.
In addition to reds and whites, Colorado’s wineries offer a few surprises. There’s fermented pear juice and hard cider at the Blossomwood Cidery, organic vodka and gin at Jack Rabbit Hill Winery, tasting flights of wine with chocolate or pizza at Boulder’s BookCliff Vineyards, several meaderies making honey wine and the Pikes Peak Vineyards and Winery’s golf club and practice range in Colorado Springs.
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