22 WESTWORD FOOD & DRINK 2023 we can’t live without. Our list covers the entire metro area and includes everything from Beckon (which got a star) to more casual, lower-price point favorites like El Taco de Mexico and Hits the Spot. Places like those aren’t likely to land in the Michelin mix but are totally worthy of the attention of hungry diners. Bottom line: Michelin stars are meaningful, but for the most comprehensive coverage of the dining scene all year long, look to your local journalists. (Alert: Watch for our next 100 restaurants list in early December.) What do you think of Yelp? A restaurant owner once described Yelp to me as a “co-dependent abusive relationship.” Most people in the industry hate it, but it’s not going anywhere. “Restaurant reviews” used to be the realm of professional critics, who would follow a set of guidelines to fairly assess a restaurant, usually with the goal of holding chefs and owners to a certain standard while also acting as consumer advocates. They’d dine anonymously, visit multiple times, and wait an appropriate amount of time after a new spot opened before passing judgment. Yelp, as South Park famously mocked back in 2015, made everyone a critic. Sud- denly, your neighbor Craig felt entitled to give the local taco place one star because they didn’t have fl our tortillas. The platform has some upsides. It can clue in owners and staff to habitual prob- lems. If used with an understanding that the reviews themselves are not all created equally, it is one of several resources peo- ple can use to fi nd certain dishes or put together a dining game plan when visiting another city. When the pandemic shut down indoor dining, leaving a positive Yelp review became one of the recom- mended ways to support your favorite local eateries. But Yelp stars rarely tell the whole story. Westword doesn’t currently have a critic — it’s a role that went on pause when the pandemic hit. And while we’ve talked about the logistics of bringing it back, our food coverage, like that of many other publications, is now more focused on highlighting the places we love and telling their stories instead of joining the masses already complaining about a sticky table or bad parking. We will, of course, call out shortcomings when necessary, but if you really want to read a full-on takedown of a place for entertainment, just scroll through Yelp. What are your favorite things to cook at home? I think I’m a pretty solid home cook, though I’m defi nitely not a baker — I don’t have the patience for exact measurements or following recipes. Instead, I love to get creative, so I rarely cook the same thing the same way twice. I tend to rotate through general staples seasonally. In the fall, there’s always at least one big batch of green chile and a lot of soups — I love my immersion blender. In the winter, there’s a lot of heavier baked pastas coming out of my kitchen, including my annual Christmas tradition: lasagna bolognese with fresh-made pasta and béchamel. In the spring and summer, it’s all about using as much seasonal pro- duce as possible. “Big salad night” is a reg- ular thing in my house, and I love making homemade dressings. I’ll try my hand at pretty much any dish from any cuisine, but my most tried-and-true ingredient staples are simple: salt, black pepper, Aleppo chile fl akes and fresh lemons. Who’s the most exciting chef in Denver? It’s not just one chef, but a group of them. Denver’s culinary scene has long been more collaborative than competi- tive, and that’s still true today. Some of the most exciting food in the city right now highlights the talent of several Asian American chefs who are sharing their culture through their own lenses — and who are also friends and supporters of one another. There’s Penelope Wong, owner of the Yuan Wonton food truck, which recently opened its own shared brick-and-mortar space along with another former food- truck team, Long Nguyen and Shauna Seaman of Pho King Rapidos. They in- troduced Thuy by PKR in the space, and on Thursday nights, Thuy serves a collaborative dinner with Yuan Wonton. Kenneth and Doris Wan started Meta Asian Kitchen at Avanti but will soon introduce their fi rst brick-and-mortar, MAKfam, in Baker. It will pay homage to the traditional, family-style Cantonese food that the Wans grew up with. One of the year’s buzziest openings happened in June, when Ni Nguyen and his wife, Anna, opened Sap Sua. It has lived up to the hype of being one of Bon Appétit’s most anticipated new additions of the year, with a menu that reimagines traditional Vietnamese dishes. What would you like to see in Denver’s dining scene? More risk-taking. There’s nothing inherently wrong with farm-to-table, seasonal restaurants decked out with houseplants and a menu that defi nitely includes oysters, burrata, steak tartare and Brussels sprouts (of course), but I’m hungry for more people to stray from the norm. A prime example is chef Bo Porytko, whose Eastern European restaurant Molotov is a refreshingly fun and quirky take on fi ne dining, down to the collection of cuckoo clocks that hang above the chef’s counter. Food for Thought continued from page 18 Oysters and deviled eggs from Annette. MOLLY MARTIN
