It's not yet "best of" issue time, but Denver and Boulder restaurants were spotlighted and praised in print, both local and (inter)national.
5280's Best New Restaurants List
The December 2009 issue of 5280 Magazine features words and photos in a cover story by Amanda Faison called "Denver's Best New Restaurants." Her top ten:
• Colt & Gray, Denver
• Salt, Boulder
• Hutch & Spoon, Denver
• Vert Kitchen, Denver
• The Squeaky Bean, Denver
• Arugula Bar e Ristorante, Boulder
• Venue Bistro, Denver
• TAG Restaurant, Denver
• Bones, Denver
Of these, I've only been to three: Arugula, Colt & Gray and Salt. I guess I've got to get out more!
Wall Street Journal Columnist Visits Boulder
A lifetime ago in New York, my path occasionally crossed that of Raymond Sokolov, who was then the New York Times food editor. The Saucier's Apprentice, his exhaustive cookbook about French sauces, is still my go-to source for detailed information and occasional recipes for this culinary category. Ray Sokolov now covers restaurants for the Wall Street Journal, I have lived in Boulder for more than 21 years, and he was here recently, sampling some of the best restaurants in town. Had I but known, we could have traded catch-up gossip over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
He documented his restaurant experiences in a piece called "Rocky Mountain Haute Cuisine" that ran last week in the Journal. In his introduction, he wrote, "This used to be the hippiest, dippiest town around. The home of a Buddhist university, a public university and Red Zinger tea, over a mile high in the Rockies and also just plain high, Boulder embraced New Age culture like few other places. But a new aroma now fills the downtown Pearl Street pedestrian mall, and it comes from truffles and saffron, not cannabis. A gourmet revolution has edged out the cultural revolution."
I guess he must have missed the dozen or more medical marijuana dispenseries that have sprung up recently around town, but he didn't miss visiting a number of Boulder's best restaurants. He wrote about the iconic Flagstaff House which is as venerable as Salt is new, and also about Black Cat, Frasca Food and Wine and The Kitchen, bastions of excellent contemporary American and international food plus environmental consciousness in the heart of Boulder. He lauded them all.