Restaurants

I’ll fight you to the death on this one: Colorado’s dining scene is hotter than a habanero.  A land-locked state within spitting distance of the culinary vacuum that is the Midwest (sorry, Chicago) might not spring to mind for its food scene. But nods from the Michelin guide prove the Mile High City and wider Colorado have a story to tell, minted in September 2023. I hopped in the Subaru and sampled a smattering of them, from Denver’s farm-to-table outposts, to whimsical epicurean adventures in Aspen, via stylish Italian brunches in Boulder. Denver Glo Noodle House 4450 W 38th Ave, Denver, CO 80212 As a tourist, you’ve got to hit Denver Biscuit Company for brunch, once.

Quizzed on how to assimilate to new cultures, travel writer and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once said: “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.” The “Opening a bottle with…” series is about getting pickled with people far cooler than I am, in new places. To me, booking a ski trip at the start of the year is the ultimate luxury. With my birthday falling on the first of January, when the ball drops, I feel a sense of melancholy. As hangovers descend and diets begin, I want to carry on celebrating.  In European ski resorts, they keep the festivities going well into March. Christmas lights and religious displays stay twinkling. Fresh snow combats the winter blues. Everyone’s happy to share a bottle of good wine.

The people who follow my social media know that I’m not kidding when I say that restaurants should ban children. You can’t avoid kids in certain fast-food or large outdoor-patio situations, but on the whole, children in restaurants are a horrible war crime. So when Nettie’s House of Spaghetti, a red-sauce joint in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, announced in February that it would be banning kids, my inbox flooded with the story. “We love kids,” the restaurant wrote. “We really, truly, do. But lately, it’s been extremely challenging to accommodate children at Nettie’s. Between noise levels, lack of space for high chairs, cleaning up crazy messes and the liability of kids running around the restaurant, we have decided that it’s time to take control of the situation.

At the age of sixteen, chef and restaurateur Forough Vakili, now forty, left Iran to meet a brother she barely knew, eventually settling in America. She didn’t return for eleven years. As a member of the minority Baháʼí faith, which teaches the value of all people, regardless of gender or religion, Vakili had hit a wall in her homeland. “I came here so I could continue my education,” she says, when we speak over Zoom. “We didn’t have many rights back in Iran — there wasn’t a lot offered for us after finishing high school.” It was in Vienna, waiting for her American visa, that Vakili reconnected with her brother for the first time since she was a toddler. Six months later she moved in with him, his wife and three daughters in Atlanta.

I have written before in these pages about declining standards in the restaurant world, which has less to do with the food than with the whole “experience” of dining out: the lack of tablecloths, the napkin-wrapped silverware, the to-go boxes, the slovenly informality of staff and customers alike. I stand by every word of it, which is why discovery, or rediscovery, of rare holdout occasions, in this diner-out, is sheer joy. One such exception, long known to me, Jimmy Kelly’s Steakhouse in Nashville, is exceptional in another sense, too. It has been in operation without interruption and under the same family ownership for eighty-nine years.

Does it seem these days that everyone you know suffers from a food allergy, sensitivity or intolerance (don’t ask me to explain the difference)? It seems inevitable that eating out in a group entails someone in the party requesting a menu item be made vegan, keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, tree nut-free, sulfite-free, etc. (I usually just hope the meal itself is free). Blame it on seed oils, soil depletion, genius marketing, the Liver King — whatever. The fact is that our toxic world makes party-planning a royal pain. How do you accommodate a bunch of people whose dietary restrictions turn menu-making into a culinary Sudoku puzzle? Fortunately for you, The Spectator associates with a lot of cool, accomplished, clever people — one of whom is Chef Andrew Gruel.

After twenty-three years in Japan, I have concluded that the much-lauded, worshipped even, cuisine is overrated. And I am getting a little tired of being told how awe-inspiringly wonderful Japanese food is, often by people whose only experience is high-end sushi or designer tempura in a showpiece Tribeca eatery, a world away from the standard fare available on the backstreets of Shibuya. Part of the problem is that much of what delights the Japanese about their food is unrelated to its actual taste.

Horizontal, deep into a book and ever deeper into a mojito, is how I’ve spent most of my week. A private beach under the Caribbean sun should have been relaxing. And it would have been, if it wasn’t for the vibe squad. What is a "vibe squad," you ask? Well, picture it: you’re nearing the end of a Patti Smith novel, and naturally you’re crying. It’s mid-afternoon, you’re contemplating a nap after the next drink. When all of a sudden you and Patti Smith are covered in booze, startled by a young girl in a bright top screaming, "are you ready to part-aaaaaay?" I was not, in fact, ready to part-aaaaaay, and the girl quickly moved along to the next unwitting tourist too polite to tell her to sling her hook.

The restaurant world was devastated this week after learning a fact our cousins across the Pond have been telling us for some time: that James Corden is a huge douchebag. The Late Late Show host found himself on the blacklist of swanky New York haunt Balthazar, after owner Keith McNally described the Brit as his “most abusive customer.” Now, one enterprising company that provides signage to restaurants is offering its clients a “free digital sign” to Iet Corden know he’s banned from their establishments too. Australia-based Mandoe Media breathlessly rushed the signs out in a press release. A bit too quickly for Cockburn’s liking, as the company appears to have skipped the spell-checking stage. One reads, “DONT BE LIKE JAMES: TREAT STAFF WITH RESPECT!

The other day I attempted to have sushi rolls for dinner. I ended my night disappointed, and excited to go shopping for overpriced groceries. Back in college, in central Jersey, I used to go to a Japanese restaurant in town, order the triple spicy roll combo, claim a student discount, and walk out with a perfect dinner for about $13. The filling was just pure fish, and enough spicy mayo to complement it. No crunchy flakes, no cucumber, no cost-cutting measures. Sure, it was a lot of rice despite feeling healthy, but I told myself the hours of studying would burn it off. So the other night, with my wife at the office and out for a work dinner, I was on my own for dinner and went searching for my old college favorite.

Twice daily, a small jet plane leaves Chicago O’Hare, flies just west of the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers and touches down at Barkley Regional Airport. Passengers are escorted across the tarmac into the tiny two-gate terminal and mill about while they wait for the exceedingly slow baggage claim. If you’re lucky, the kindly older woman at the rental car desk upgrades your SUV to a pick-up truck. Step outside for a smoke while you wait, and the local policeman offers you a chat rather than a hassle. Eventually, your patience is rewarded, your bags are loaded up and you get to head out and explore the largest city in the Jackson Purchase region.

A few years ago, I moved to Newlyn, a fishing village in west Cornwall. I didn’t understand why I moved to Newlyn until I returned to Venice. I take almost all my holidays in Venice, and it is a cliché that Venice only slowly reveals her mysteries. You must fight your way past a mass of Renaissance portraiture and mirrored palaces but the mystery it showed me this time is this: like Newlyn, Venice is a fishing village. Venice got rich in the thirteenth century, monopolized the trade routes to the east for two centuries and covered itself in Istrian stone, which Newlyn didn’t. But it’s still a fishing village, founded by people running away from barbarians, into the mud flats of a lagoon to fish for crabs. It is easy to forget that — unless you look for Venetian cuisine.