Denver

Food & Drinks

Denver abounds with Mexican holes in the wall, chain eateries, steak joints, and even a few bison joints, and the restaurants in LoDo and Cherry Creek become more like those in Los Angeles and Manhattan every year.

If you’d like to get a taste of several restaurants, Culinary Connectors leads walking tours of Denver on Friday and Saturday afternoons, as well as other tours in both Denver and Boulder. Pricing is typically $99 per person.

Inexpensive

Downtown — There are a number of great breakfast spots in the downtown area. Snooze, is a great breakfast and lunch spot in the Ballpark neighborhood, serving delicacies like pineapple upside-down pancakes and bison meatball subs. Established in 1942, Pete’s Kitchen, is a prototypical urban diner, with checkerboard floors, a breakfast bar, booths, plenty of local color, and killer breakfast burritos. Pete’s is open 24 hours on weekends, making it a favorite of the bar-hopping crowd. And there is perhaps no more remarkable value-oriented restaurant than the non-profit SAME Cafe, where there is no cash register: Customers pay donations of their own choosing for a healthy lunch. The socially conscious proprietors are committed to alleviating hunger and promoting healthy eating for all.

Outside Downtown — For burrito aficionados, the world’s first Chipotle is located near the University of Denver, at 1644 E. Evans Ave.

Family-Friendly Restaurants

Casa Bonita — If the kids aren’t concentrating on the tacos, the puppet shows, high divers, fun house, and video arcade will enthral them.

Wynkoop Brewing Company — With a dining area separate from the bar, this pub and restaurant has a loud, bustling atmosphere and plenty of kid-friendly menu options.

A Good City for Green Chile Fiends

Green chile (green chil-ay) n. a fiery-sweet stew made of chile peppers and other ingredients, often but not always including chunks of pork, tomato, and onion. Denver’s eateries serve bowl after bowl of good green chile, stuff that ranges from merely spicy to flat-out nuclear. If you have a serious weakness for a bowl of green, here are six hot spots in the Mile High City, in no particular order:

  1. Brewery Bar II: Inconspicuously nestled in a warehouse district, the Brewery Bar serves some of the hottest green chile in Denver. It also happens to be some of the tastiest. There are also two Brewery Bars in the south suburbs.
  2. El Tejado: This locals’ favorite in the southern reaches of the city serves a unique thick green chile plate as well as some of the best authentic Mexican dishes in the Rockies.
  3. Jack-N-Grill: Sweet and typically served in a bowl with beans, Jack Martinez’s green chile is excellent, as is his red. There is a second location in Littleton.
  4. Las Delicias: A Denver tradition, Las Delicias serves some of the city’s best green chile from its downtown location among its four metro-area eateries.
  5. Little Anita’s: Relatively new in Denver, this longtime Albuquerque eatery offers wicked green chile from a strip mall in southeast Denver and three other metro-area locations.
  6. Lime: Almost too hip for its own good, Larimer Square’s Lime eschews pork for chicken and dresses up the bowl with tortilla strips. Defying tradition tastes pretty good.
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