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From classic American to cultural fusion, Colorado restaurants serve up delectable dining experiences. Behind every culinary creation is a passionate chef who lives to cook and restaurant owners who thrive on pleasing their patrons. Here we step behind the scenes of three enjoyable restaurants.
The Restaurants of Hotel Colorado
Hotel Colorado's executive chef Ron Jackson creates menus that reflect both his extensive culinary experience in Europe and his appreciation of wholesome American-style cuisine. "I feel quite free to use ingredients from all over the place," Jackson said.
While the menu offers some classic French dishes, it emphasizes a broad variety of comfort foods and regionally grown produce and meat, including Colorado lamb, bison and elk.
Influenced by his Italian mother's cooking finesse, Jackson got started in the restaurant business at age 14, became a baker in the U.S. Army, and then graduated from Scottsdale Culinary Institute. He honed his skills as a sous chef in several Marriott operations, including Snowmass and Vail. Later, as executive sous chef and master chef of the Hyatt Regency in London, England, he catered prestigious functions, such as two G8 Summits and private dinners for Prince Charles and other notables.
Jackson became executive chef of the Hotel Colorado, in Glenwood Springs, a year ago, after extensive renovation of the hotel's two restaurants, Baron's and Legends. "I always said I'd come back to Colorado," said Chef Jackson, who was born in Littleton and has known Hotel Colorado all his life. "I'm ready to settle here now for quite a long time."
The chef noted that unlike typical hotel dining facilities, Baron's and Legends are run like freestanding restaurants. "We don't do traditional hotel food," he said. "We'd like more people to come to the hotel just to dine."
He changes the menu four times a year to feature seasonal foods, such as root vegetables, squashes and hearty soups in winter. Jackson likes to change most everything on the menu. An exception is gnocchi soufflé which he offers half of the year.
He created the gnocchi soufflé several years ago in Europe for a vegetarian menu and soon found that non-vegetarians love it, too. "It's different from what you would find in a typical Italian restaurant," he said. Several features distinguish it from other pastas: it's baked, the soufflé makes it light, and Fontina cheese — his favorite — adds lots of flavor.
The holiday menu will be offered through December. Desserts, which the chef describes as old-fashioned, rustic selections, are made in-house from scratch. He likes to stick with the classics. This season, for example, the dessert menu features apple tarts, bread puddings, crème brûlée, and warm, bittersweet chocolate tarts. Yum!
Hapa Sushi Grill & Sake Bar
The fourth trendy, upbeat sushi restaurant owned by Mark Van Grack opened in the Landmark Center last August. The restaurant's name, Hapa Sushi Grill & Sake Bar, reveals what makes dining here unique. The Hawaiian term hapa refers to the blend of East and West cultures. The restaurant creates a unique hapa cuisine by altering and enhancing traditional Japanese fare with the influences of many different cooking styles. For example, the menu includes such culturally blended items as tuna nachos, Hawaiian-style sticky ribs, and tuna poke on a taro root cake.
Van Grack focuses on creating an entire dining experience that combines great food, ambiance and service. Whether a customer pays $25 or $100, he wants them to be able to say, "It was well worth every penny, and I can't wait to go back again!"
Tall vases of fresh, scarlet red flowers counterbalance the dark gray walls and high ceiling, creating an elegant, modern décor. The humorous — and often uninhibited — names of the baked rolls add fun to the dining experience.
Highlighting the food part of the experience is fresh fish flown in daily from Hawaii, prepared as sashimi, sushi rolls, Nigiri, Hapa bowls, baked fish and more. Customers can choose either sustainable (farm raised) or natural fish.
A delectable sequence starts with sashimi, followed by sushi and capped with one of their famous baked rolls. Van Grack refers to them as dessert rolls because of their hearty richness. The catch of the day is a delectable main course for diners who prefer their fish cooked. Steamed with ginger and soy cilantro and then flashed in chili oil, the whole fish comes accompanied with steamed asparagus and rice. Non-fish items like the Kobe Ribeye and a kids' menu are also available.
The extensive sake list ranges from house-infused mango sake to silky Onikoroshi. The bar serves sake cold unless requested warm. Diners can sample several of them by ordering tasters. In addition to dining, customers can enjoy Hapa's extensive selection of appetizers and beverages during happy hours, which run daily from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. and Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to midnight.
The restaurant keeps the atmosphere light-hearted, even when presenting the check. It comes in a folder labeled "The Damage."
Pesce Fresco Bistro
Now in its eighth year, family-owned Pesce Fresco welcomes diners into a casual bistro with an inviting Tuscan ambiance. Fine art photographs of the Italian countryside accent the textured yellow walls. A 15-foot wide window opens from the bar onto the outdoor patio, connecting outdoor patrons with the indoor setting.
Pesce Fresco has always been a fish restaurant first, an Italian restaurant second. The bistro offers two fish specials every evening and sometimes a meat or pasta special. "We want to keep it exciting," said Chef Samir Mohammed, who joined the restaurant last summer. "We want people to wonder what's coming next."
The 24-year-old chef brings with him a young, fresh attitude, lots of new ideas and solid experience. He grew up in Taos, New Mexico, where he began working in restaurants at age 13. While in the U.S. Coast Guard, he attended Le Cordon Bleu in San Francisco and got a degree in dietary nutrition from the CIA Graystone Castle. After his tour of duty, he honed his skills under Chef Joseph Wrede at Joseph's Table in Taos. His first head chef assignment was at the Nautical Inn Resort and Conference Center in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
"I like knowing I can take one food item, do 100 things with it, and create something different every time," Chef Samir said about his profession. The restaurant's nightly specials — which are based on seasonally available vegetables, fish and spices — give him the opportunity to constantly be creative. During the holidays, the menu will feature such items as seafood tamales, pumpkin risotto, and butternut squash ravioli with cottage cheese.
The chef created the featured recipe, Lobster and Shrimp Chile Rellenos, by combining fresh fish with a Taos recipe. The rellenos are battered in his favorite brew, Fat Tire ale, stuffed with seafood, Manchego and Gruyere cheeses, deep fried, and topped with green chile sauce and sharp cheddar cheese. "People like to be warmed up inside," the chef remarks, "and chile does a great job of that."
He especially enjoys doing the monthly wine dinners. The extensive wine list reflects the expertise that owners Joel and Merrilee Diner gained during 17 years in the wine business. The restaurant also features Sunday brunch. "I want people to feel they have a 4– or 5–star meal and not feel it in their pocket book," Chef Samir said. "It's feasible to cook like that."
Published in Buzz in the 'Burbs, November 2008
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