Wednesday, September 2, 2026

The Top 78 Restaurants Near Hotel Polaris







  1. Rank 7. Kizaki

    Omakase Japanese

    Toshi Kizaki built Denver's Japanese dining scene over four decades, and this intimate counter omakase is where he's raising his own bar. Around twenty courses move between small plates and nigiri he shapes himself, with Michelin's one-star stamp confirming what regulars already knew. The room is spare and dramatically lit, the pacing unhurried, and the sake pairings handled with care. This is a full-commitment dinner, not a drop-in.


  2. Rank 8. Margot

    Contemporary New American

    Eight seats at a counter tucked inside a shared space, which tells you almost everything about the vibe before the bread arrives. Margot is a multicourse tasting menu restaurant earning a Michelin star on the strength of cooking that reads as both Colorado and everywhere at once. Each guest gets their own individual loaf of olive oil brioche, freshly baked, which sets the tone for hospitality that somehow manages not to feel performative.










  3. The move here is mon nhau, Vietnamese bar food that runs to pork-stuffed chicken wings, snails in salted egg yolk, and fries drowning in brisket and garlic butter. The pho shots, vodka and beef broth, set the tone for everything else. This Harvey Park kitchen and bar keeps the pho and bánh mì around for the cautious, but the menu's whole subtext is that caution is overrated. Bring people you like enough to share a three-liter soju tower with.



  4. A strip-mall Turkish restaurant in Englewood with four tables and portions that could feed a small village. The menu runs through lamb shish kebabs, börek, pita-wrapped gyros, and the layered iskender, all at prices that make you feel briefly guilty. The team runs the room with the kind of warmth that makes strangers feel like regulars. Finish with baklava and strong Turkish coffee, then figure out how to button your coat.













  5. Rank 31. Ochag Bar & Grill

    Armenian Middle Eastern

    An Armenian and Caucasian grill tucked into an Aurora strip mall, where the khachapuri arrives topped with egg and cheese and the beef dumplings, called khinkali, are large enough to require a small plan of attack. The menu runs from hearty stews and hand-pulled noodles to eggplant rolls stuffed with garlic-walnut spread. Georgian wine, from a region that considers itself the cradle of viticulture, is the right call alongside any of it.























  6. A Sicilian family splits the room between a bakery counter stacked with lobster tail pastries and sweet cannoli and a full sit-down dining area with a bar, so you can eat chicken parm and lasagna, then carry dessert home. The savory cannoli, stuffed with sausage, jalapeños, and oozing mozzarella, has earned its own following. Finish with the house limoncello, made cream-style in the Sicilian way, which lands somewhere between a digestif and a milkshake.





















  7. Outdoor grilling stations let you cook your own marinated meats al fresco, which is either a dream or a chore depending on your relationship with fire. This Indian grill in the Park Meadows mall takes familiar dishes, butter chicken, dal, coconut curry, and runs them through a French culinary lens. Everything arrives at one spice level, with the chef's hot sauce on the side to dial up the heat yourself.



  8. The broth simmers for twelve hours, which tells you everything about how seriously this Vietnamese noodle shop takes its pho. Sixteen variations run from the classic stacked beef bowl to seafood versions with shrimp and fish balls. The room is no-frills and the portions are generous, the kind of place where the soup does the talking and nobody feels the need to narrate it.


  9. The curry is the reason regulars keep coming back, which surprises people who think of Vietnam and curry in the same sentence as a typo. This strip-mall Vietnamese spot in Aurora has been serving pho and homey staples forever, but the house curry, built on madras powder, coconut milk, and a heavy hand with lemongrass, lands somewhere all its own. Nothing Thai about it, nothing Indian, just a dish that makes the menu feel longer than most.


  10. The green chile here is a gravy-thick, pork-studded Colorado classic that regulars order straight up with tortillas, no plate required. El Tejado is an old-school Mexican diner on South Broadway, and the room does look a bit like a cartoon cave, which somehow suits it. The hot version of that chile is a separate proposition entirely, built in layers rather than just spiked, and it will find your limits.


  11. A Thai cafe tucked into a strip mall on South Colorado, Thai Pot Cafe is the kind of neighborhood spot that fills up fast on weeknights. The drunken noodles are the draw, charred thick and loaded with eggplant, green beans, and tomatoes. Heat runs on a scale where ten counts as "Thai mild," so the numbers above that are not decorative. Westword named them Denver's best drunken noodles in 2023, which the regulars already knew.


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Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

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    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

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      Stay Score

      The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. It runs on the scored places nearby: more good stuff within reach, higher score. If it looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.