When Denver chefs lay down their professional knives for the night, the last thing they want to think about is cooking a meal at home. Some will resort to a Cup O’ Noodles, college-style with a plastic fork, for a quick bite of sustenance, but others, like James Beard Award-winning chef Caroline Glover, have kids, so they cherish the rare nights out on the town.
And they use them wisely. So, skip the Yelp reviews and head straight to the source. Here’s where four decorated local chefs go out to eat on their nights off.
Caroline Glover
With a one-year-old daughter on their hands, Caroline Glover and her husband, Nelson Harvey, have scaled back their hours at their restaurants, Annette and Traveling Mercies. They help prep the teams for upcoming service and head home in time for dinner with Franny.
But on the way, they might stop at Urban Burma since it’s just two blocks away from Stanley Marketplace where Annette and Traveling Mercies are located. The Burmese food stall inside the Mango House international food hall, 10180 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora, serves what Glover considers “the best samosas in the whole city.” She also likes to order two tea-leaf salads with fermented tea leaves, cabbage, tomatoes, garlic fried peanuts and crunchy yellow lentils. “I get one for that night, and one for the next day,” Glover said. “To-go salads can be tricky, but it’s perfect because it’s marinated, so the longer it sits, the better it gets.”
On Tuesdays, the couple makes time for date night. More often than not, they find themselves at Hillstone in Cherry Creek, 303 Josephine St. “It’s a very nostalgic and quick and easy bite for us,” she said. “You know exactly what you’re going to get, and I love people-watching.” Glover likes to get a “girl dinner” with grilled artichoke, French fries and a martini, while Harvey prefers the ribs.
They also like to explore new spots. Most recently, they fell in love with Alma Fonda Fina, 2556 15th St. “It doesn’t feel like anywhere else in Denver, which is hard to find. Looking out those big glass windows, I forgot where I was for a second. The service was incredible, and what the kitchen put out with that small of a space exceeded my expectations.”
Alex Seidel
Alex Seidel’s two high schoolers are both active in sports, so the James Beard Award-winning chef doesn’t get out much. But he’ll make an exception for the broccoli salad at Kawa Ni, a Japanese pub that opened last year at 1900 W. 32nd Ave. in Denver. “Anyone who can take raw broccoli and turn it into something as special as that salad is doing something right,” Seidel said. “What [owner Bill Taibe] is doing over there is a welcome addition to Denver with food that’s always balanced and properly seasoned.”
Seidel, the founder of Fruition, Mercantile Dining & Provision and Chook Chicken, lives in the Lakewood suburbs and his family likes to do a rotation between sushi, poke, Chinese and Indian food. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen my son or daughter eat a hot dog,” he laughed.
For sushi, they prefer Hana Matsuri, 150 S. Union Blvd., Unit 103, Lakewood, where they order nigiri, hamachi kama (grilled yellowtail collar), and grilled squid. “Being in the suburbs, it’s hard to find quality fish, but Hana Matsuri is always consistent. It’s not cheap, but no sushi is these days.”
When it comes to Chinese, his daughter usually wins the fight for her favorite takeout from New Peking. The to-go-only restaurant at 12601 W. Alameda Parkway in Lakewood, serves an array of solid classics from chow mein to pan-fried rice, Seidel said.
Cindhura Reddy
Cindhura Reddy and Elliot Strathmann, owners of Spuntino, adopted a baby daughter last year, so their schedules have changed significantly. “We took a step back from nights, so we’re here during the day more often to be with our kid,” Reddy said.
When they do get a chance to slip out, it’s usually to visit Reddy’s family in Aurora, where her sister recently introduced her to Golden Saigon, 2648 S. Parker Road. Reddy was enamored with the nearly 30-year-old Vietnamese restaurant’s family recipes, like Mama Le’s pork curry, a classic clay pot curry from founder and Vietnam native Thanh Thi Le Nguyen.
Spuntino combines Indian and Italian dishes, so it’s no surprise that Reddy — a James Beard Award semifinalist — is elevating her daughter’s palate with a variety of foods. “She’s such a good eater that she’ll try anything, so we haven’t totally changed our nights off,” Reddy said. She’s even tagged along to their favorite Szechuan restaurant, Yummy Hot Pot & Dumplings, 10350 Federal Blvd. in Federal Heights, where they like to “order half of the menu.”
On a recent, and rare, date night, the couple shared “one of the most memorable meals we had in recent history” at Eastern European-focused Molotov Kitschen + Cocktails, 3333 E. Colfax Ave. She tried a cold borscht with duck dumplings made by chef Bo Portyko, and “there’s nothing else to that caliber in town,” Reddy said. “Bo is really making it his own.”
Erasmo Casiano
Erasmo Casiano, the owner and chef at Lucina Eatery & Bar and the newly opened Xiquita, has a baby on the way, so he doesn’t come up for air that often.
But when he does, the James Beard Award semifinalist heads to Ni Tuyo, 730 S. University Blvd., a Mexican restaurant from the family behind Adelitas. Although the Cielo Mar y Tierra molcajete with steak, chicken and shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce, is meant to be shared, Casiano can crush the whole thing by himself. “The molcajetes are very rooted and tasty in the traditional sense, not to mention the bar is stocked with all the mezcal you could possibly want,” Casiano said.
Lucina and Xiquita are both closed on Sundays and Mondays, so sometimes on those nights, Casiano gets a bite at modern Vietnamese eatery Sap Sua, 2550 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver. He appreciates how everyone on the team there “has something on the menu they can call their own.” His favorites are the “trứng và trứng” with soft scrambled egg, brown butter, fish sauce and trout roe over rice, as well as the “cá kho” (hamachi collar). “I could chow on those all day long.”
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