Downtown:
Cholon – new age Asian, really good
Citizen Rail – great happy hour
Tavernetta – (very near the station), expensive but great food, happy hour
The Kitchen next Door – at Union Station
Genuine & Stoic (too expensive for the quality, but great oysters) owned by Jen Jasinski. She also owns :
Bistro Vendome – great and not too expensive French &
Rioja – was thought to be the best restaurant downtown. Never have eaten there but people say so.
Panzano – Italian food, great happy hour, chef is great, easy walk to Concert Hall
Tamayo is modern, and an easy walk from the Concert Hall
Nickle (in the Hotel Teatro) just steps from Concert Hall, and good
RiNo –
River North area north of Downtown. West side is around Brighton Blvd or east part of RiNo is across the tracks from the Blvd mostly on Larimar St, but northeast on Larimar like 25th – the southwest part of Larimar is like 14th-16th St and is called Larimar Square. There are a lot of great new restaurants in this neighborhood. Here are a few we can vouch for:
Il Posto – east. Nice patio right on Larimar
Safta – west -Mediterranean – great great in the Source Hotel
In the Tech Center
(not much)
Il Fornio – 8000 E Belleview Ave Suite G-10, Greenwood Village, CO 80111-2660. This place used to be downtown and it was very good then, and may still be.
If you go east of I-25 you’re in Aurora, and there are many ethnic restaurants (and a lot of places like Red Lobster and Applebees, too). We’ve taken a chance on some one-off places but none were terribly memorable.
Elsewhere
Pho is great in Denver – huge Vietnamese community – best has been New Saigon on Federal.
Korean barbecue – chain but good one on Broadway just south of Sixth Avenue.