Denver native Lori Midson is the restaurant critic and dining editor at Colorado AvidGolfer magazine, a frequent contributor to Sunset magazine, the Colorado-based book editor for the Zagat guides, and a contributing restaurant reviewer for the online ezine, Citysearch. Prior to joining Colorado AvidGolfer, Midson was the restaurant critic for Denver�s 5280 Magazine. When she�s not crossing her forks and dotting her knives, she�s furiously trying to finish an ethnic restaurant guide to Denver. She can be reached at lmidson@mfire.com.

Dining in Denver is finally getting serious.

Anyone who hasn�t visited the Mile High City recently may raise an eyebrow at such a lofty assertion. After all, this city of sunshine (300 days of rays per year boast the experts) is better known for its outdoor pursuits than its temples of haute cuisine. But spend a few days here, and you�ll notice that things are seriously changing on the culinary circuit. The chain restaurants and slapdash super-sized-eateries that were so pervasive over the past decade are giving way to a new breed of localized restaurants spearheaded by a bumper crop of innovative, young chefs focused on honest ingredients, globe-trotting menus, and customer coddling.

�The Denver restaurant scene is so hot right now that chefs who have cooked all over the world are coming here to open their own place,� says acclaimed New York chef and restaurant operator Richard Sandoval. �When I arrived in Denver, I found a city extremely open to trying new foods and embracing new restaurants,� says Sandoval, who owns two Denver restaurants of his own, Tamayo and Zengo.

Could it be, then, that perhaps for the first time ever, Denver deserves its own thumbtack on the culinary roadmap, that this Queen City of the Plains is a bona fide chef-driven town nipping at the heels of elitist dining out cities like Chicago and San Francisco?

Well, yes.

Now when you visit this world-class city, you�ll still find plenty of places conducive to exploration � the Colorado State Capitol, myriad museums and parks, Coors Field, and Colorado�s Ocean Journey, just to name a few � but it�s likely that you won�t have time for a full-fledged attractions itinerary.

You�ll be far too busy eating.

What follows are Denver�s top tables -- groundbreaking temples of gastronomy that mix confident cooking with passionate, gold-star chefs. Some are familiar gems, while others shimmer off the beaten path, but all are contributing to the diversity and excitement of Denver�s explosive dining scene. Straightforward or groundbreaking, rebellious or romantic, inexpensive or pricey, kitschy or clubby, these are the restaurants that make dining in Denver as engaging as the city�s majestic setting at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

Start your culinary escapades in �ber cool Lower Downtown Denver, affectionately dubbed LoDo by locals. Wedged between historic warehouse buildings that double as slick boutiques, avant-garde art galleries, and friendly watering holes sit kitchen wonders like the ultra-glam Adega Restaurant + Wine Bar. This moneyed, modern food temple near Union Station garnered accolades from the get-go for its heralded wine cellar, a glass-enclosed marvel that touts hundreds of small production labels along with more familiar bottlings. But patrons also descend in droves for executive chef Bryan Moscatello�s seasonally changing menu, which proffers up luxurious offerings such as lusty lobster agnolotti and veal cheeks swathed in a Marsala wine sauce. For an intimate glimpse into the epicurean kingdom run by Moscatello, a 2003 Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef winner, book the chef�s table in the kitchen.

A few blocks away sits Vesta Dipping Grill, a sleekly appointed noshery with an eclectic, but artfully conceived creative American menu courtesy of executive chef Matt Selby, a risk-taking young gun whose claim to fame are his 30 different signature dipping sauces. Restaurant-goers and critics alike rave about Selby�s new wave cooking, including the chef�s grilled venison bathed in a red curried coconut sauce sitting atop a cargo of oyster mushrooms saut�ed in ginger ale.

French-trained top toque John Broening is winning over Francophiles with his enlightened French cooking at Brasserie Rouge, a star qualit� Parisian tour de force near Coors Field. Broening mixes lashings of tradition, like a gloriously marbled steak tartare and indelible charcuterie plate with more modern offerings such as the double cut pork chop festooned with a blue cheese fondue. The accommodating staff evokes Paris without the pretense, and the interior flaunts tables topped with butcher�s paper, Tiffany-style lighting, cozy, red leatherette banquettes, and invigorated service.

When you want to welcome warmth of a different kind, LoDo�s India House delivers in excess. Denver is sprinkled with dozens of strip-mall, curry-in-a-hurry joints, but this fine dining temple of heat, smoke, and spice achieves remarkable new depths thanks to a romantic, streamlined decor and spirited menu that gratifies beyond the ubiquitous chicken tikka masala. It�s on the menu to appease loyalists, but other dishes, such as dal tarka (black, urad lentils laced with cream), bhindi masala (okra cooked with dried mango and caramelized onions), and sultan-a-gosht (tandoori-roasted leg of lamb), are fit for royalty.

The city�s best upscale Mexican food draws diners to Tamayo, located on trendy Larimer Square in the heart of LoDo. Executive chef-owner Richard Sandoval, whose restaurant empire includes Maya and Pampano in New York, woos diners with his sumptuous pan-roasted salmon enchiladas and coveted corn soup bobbing with huitlacoche dumplings. From the restaurant�s rooftop patio, revelers can soak up the sun and panoramic mountain views while savoring the sure-handedly spiced guacamole.

Riding on the coattails of Tamayo�s success, Sandoval recently opened

Zengo, a multi-million dollar, flamboyantly sexy food temple located in the newly developed Riverfront area just a short skip from LoDo. Typical of Denver�s new style of upscale restaurants, he and chef de cuisine Troy Guard have created stunningly stylish digs decked out in riots of color that are right in step with the exemplary Latino food fused with Asian flavors. Small plates meant for sharing are the way to go here: tantalizing ceviches, ahi tuna won ton tacos, duck Peking rolls, Kobe beef, and a fabulous red-curried Thai noodle soup. Guard, who did kitchen stints in Hong Kong and Singapore before firing up the burners at Zengo, insists that the Denver dining scene is well on its way to stardom. �Denver restaurants are very much on the rise," he says. "We�re fast becoming one of those great cities where you literally plan your vacations around your next meal out. As a chef, that�s so exciting.�

And no holiday to Denver would be complete without a gastronomic forge into the creative American menu at the luxuriously posh Restaurant Kevin Taylor. Housed in the Hotel Teatro, just adjacent to the Colorado Convention Center, this dashing restaurant overseen by one of the city�s most revered impresarios, pampers patrons with white-glove service and stellar kitchen offerings: decadent roasted squab breast sharing space with duck confit ravioli, for instance. Taylor is a chef who unabashedly advocates assertive tastes: "I''m not interested in food that looks good, but has no flavor. In my restaurants, flavor is paramount," he says. For concrete evidence, look no further than his rosemary-studded pork chop shrouded in a diabolically rich foie gras sauce and sided with caramelized apples and au gratin potatoes pelted with sharp Tillamook cheddar.

For Denver�s finest neighborhood dining, local folk flock to the urban enclave of Governor�s Park, a bustling thoroughfare located just minutes from downtown. Chef-owner Frank Bonanno received a hero�s welcome from the culinary cognoscenti when he flung open the doors to Mizuna, a charming New American cookery fueled by an uncompromising chef�s passion for impeccable ingredients. When it comes to Bonanno�s foie gras, for instance, there is none better. But even less plush dishes, like the hearty duck cassoulet, reveal rich forkfuls of tastes that explode into your mouth. Best of all, the flavors linger long after you�ve swallowed.

Next door to Mizuna, you�ll find Italian food aficionados jostling for seats at Bonanno�s second restaurant, Luca D�Italia. The bold blood-orange and Lamborghini red walls create the ideal foil for Bonanno�s impossibly perfect rustic Italian fare. In this handsome space, patrons go giddy for the chef�s upfront, vivacious pastas, like the white-truffled fusilli. Other dishes, such as the rabbit presented three ways � confit, grilled, and braised � reveal profoundly flavored, feather-tender meat. Bonanno continually draws raves from local critics, including being named Denver Chef of the Year by Denver�s city magazine. No surprise, given the fact that this is a chef who cut his teeth at famed restaurants like Gramercy Tavern, Restaurant Daniel, and the French Laundry. �Denver is experiencing a culinary explosion of young chefs who are really driving up the quality of the city�s restaurants,� says Bonanno.

Sean Yontz, Bonanno�s across-the-street chef colleague, agrees. �We�ve gone from steakhouses and chains to a slew of chef-focused restaurants that compete with dining destination cities like New York and San Francisco,� he insists. Yontz�s claim to fame? Cooking stints with New York chef Richard Sandoval and Denver top toque Kevin Taylor. Oh...yes...and Vega, a luxuriously sophisticated Mexi-Latin restaurant that marked a new level of intrigue and sultriness when it opened just over a year ago. Yontz, the man behind Vega�s stove, turns out exotic, but clean-flavored dishes that showcase the virtues of his Hispanic heritage: pozole with roasted suckling pig, oysters baked with chorizo and queso Mexicana, and chipotle roasted pork loin plated with sweet potato gratin.

Just a few blocks from Vega is the tiny, 24-seat Clair de Lune, where chef-owner Sean Kelly�s cuisine, a concert of French and Mediterranean forces, evokes waves of ecstasy, but not for its glitz or glamour. No, Kelly is a master of simplicity and purity, a chef whose bresaola (salted raw beef) is aged in house and whose fruits de mer platters deliver shocking waves of sea juices. Kelly insists on using only top-quality ingredients, which means he plucks, pokes and prods from local farms, markets, and purveyors.

Due east of Clair de Lune in the swanky Cherry Creek area, customers are marveling over the culture-spanning foodstuffs at Mel�s Bar and Grill. The restaurant, which is celebrating its 10-year-anniversary (a feat for any restaurant), exposes the ingenuities of chef Tyler Wiard, a kitchen magician who enamors dedicated foodies with flirty, but disciplined culinary creations such as the succulent roasted duck breast pooled in a smooth green chile and crowned with a perfectly poached duck egg jiggling with a rich yolky center.

Solera Restaurant and Wine Bar sits poised in East Denver, a five-minute car ride from Cherry Creek. Customers have fallen head over heels for Christian �Goose� Sorensen�s globalized American fare, which covers everything from Thai-inspired calamari and seared Diver scallops perched next to fresh emerald green peas to singed Ahi tuna paired with a lively Asian salad shimmering with a miso vinaigrette. The restaurant�s boutique wine list is as captivating as Sorensen�s food concoctions.

In the neighborhood known as the Highlands, just north of Downtown, serious foodophiles are celebrating places like Parisi, a clamorous Italian trattoria and deli that also happens to dish out the city�s best pizza � charred crusts that are uniformly texture perfect, thicker than cracker-thin, but still light and refined and judiciously ladled with a hearty, herby tomato sauce. Toppings, including asparagus, soppressata salame (don�t even think of asking for pepperoni), bresaola, arugula, pungent anchovies, smoked salmon, and rich Italian sausage, are primo quality. Proprietor and chef Simone Parisi, a native of Florence, makes eating here as pleasurable as any trip to Italy.

A short stroll down the street transports you to Caf� Brazil, a funky neighborhood hot spot that ministers to assertive palates, especially those with an affinity for hot Brazilian peppers, lime leaves, dende oil, coconut milk, and utterly fabulous creatures of the sea. Chef Tony Zarlenga knows his way around the ocean blue, and his translucent sea scallops, the size of a baby�s fist, are the silky proof. Big, bold flavors wash up in the cazuela Colombiana, a tangle of large, tender prawns and fork-tender chicken bites swaddled in a rich gorgonzola cheese sauce aromatic with the mellow sting of chilies.

A combination of Vintage charm and fresh-from-the-garden cooking lures serious food-types to Highlands� Garden Caf�, two lovingly restored Victorian homes turned single restaurant that flaunts the kitchen talents of Patricia Perry, a phenomenal chef whose cooking philosophy preaches perfection � both in the first-rate locally produced ingredients she emphatically advocates on the plate (many of which are grown in her own garden) and in her commitment to allowing the flavors speak for themselves. Perry�s menu changes according to what�s seasonal, but recent offerings have included grilled quail slicked with a molasses-pomegranate glaze and lemon-caper buttered John Dory served alongside baby scallops.

If mind-altering green chile is more your style, then look no further than Jack-n-Grill, a perpetually packed and rollicking New Mexican joint near Invesco Field at Mile High. The proprietors, Jack and Anna Martinez, hail from Albuquerque, and their bustling kitchen turns out piquant, flavor-packed foodstuffs like fresh corn scraped from the cob and doused with butter, hot sauce, chile powder, and fresh lime juice. The result is heaven in a cup.

Further down the street on Denver�s Asian restaurant row, New Saigon has carved out an indelible Vietnamese niche. The d�cor won�t win any awards from America�s next domestic diva, but that doesn�t stop the hordes of in-the-know food-savants from flocking here day and night for steaming clay pots swelling with seafood, noodle bowls brimming with fresh vegetables and meats, and chowhound quality goi cuon � expertly assembled springs rolls popping like buttons with rice vermicelli, shrimp, shredded pork, and mint and cilantro leaves. They are rhapsody on the tongue.

And just about everyone in Denver is rhapsodizing about newcomer Mirepoix. Taking up residence in the new J.W. Marriott Hotel in the tony Cherry Creek neighborhood, this soon-to-be-open French restaurant from the partners who own Adega Restaurant + Wine Bar, promises to be one of the most talked about tables in town. Adega chef Bryan Moscatello plans to split his kitchen time accordingly.

Denver may not be the culinary capital of the world, but with terrific restaurants and a smorgasbord of rising chefs, the Mile High City�s dining climate is well on its way to becoming as winsome as the city�s open-air pursuits.

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Media Contact: Jill Strunk jstrunk@dmcvb.org +1 (303) 571-9451