The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Denver

The menu comes with a warning: "Hot, not recommended for the first-time visitor." This no-frills Thai spot takes that seriously, leaning on Thai chiles the way other places lean on salt. Green curry, larb, drunken noodles, and pineapple fried rice all land with real heat beneath the lemongrass and galangal. Order mild if you want to taste dinner rather than survive it.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Thai Delivery · Best of Denver

A coffee shop that also pours wine and cocktails, Little Finch sits on the 16th Street Mall as one of the rare locally owned spots among the chain-store sprawl. The team behind Olive & Finch built it to run all day, moving from pastries and fresh-pressed juices through sandwiches and salads into a proper bar program, which is either very convenient or very dangerous depending on your afternoon.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Addition to the 16th Street Mall · Best of Denver

A wine bar in RiNo that keeps fried chicken and tinned fish on the menu alongside Khikhvi, Nerello Mascalese, and a Mencía from Oregon that has no business being that good. The list leans hard into natural, biodynamic, and small-production bottles, and the staff can talk you through all of it without making you feel like a student. Grape nerds and people who just want a glass with snacks coexist peacefully here.

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A food trailer parked in a restaurant's lot, Pablito's slings breakfast burritos to the green-chile-obsessed Denver crowd that takes these things very seriously. The menu runs four standards plus a build-your-own, but most people end up ordering the one called The Best Damn Burrito...Period, which commits fully to its own marketing. Westword named it Denver's best breakfast burrito in 2023, and the line on a cold morning makes a decent argument.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Breakfast Burrito · Best of Denver

Parlor Doughnuts builds its doughnuts from laminated dough, which gives them a tall, layered cross-section and a richness closer to a croissant than a cruller. The Denver outpost of this Indiana-born chain carries flavors like French toast and raspberry pistachio, all draped in icing and clearly not interested in restraint. A doughnut shop for people who find regular doughnuts a little too subtle.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Doughnuts · Best of Denver

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.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Pho · Best of Denver

The rotating sausage of the week pulls from global flavor traditions, which is either a bold move or a perfectly normal Tuesday at this RiNo barbecue spot. Brisket and pulled pork anchor the menu, but jackfruit and mushrooms hold their own alongside smoked confit duck, so vegetarians aren't left staring at sides. The D&D-themed name prepares you for the crowd, in the best possible, genuinely unsurprising way.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Barbecue Restaurant · Best of Denver

Pochitos is a north Denver tortilla factory that also sells tamales by the dozen, and that second fact tends to overshadow the first. It's a bulk-buy, family-run shop where you stock the fridge: tortillas, chips, salsas, refried beans, rice, and masa for the ambitious. The tamales come in red and green, and they sell masa too, in case you want to make your own, though most people try one and quietly put that plan away.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Tamales · Best of Denver

Denver has a genuine Ethiopian dining scene, and this East Colfax restaurant quietly anchors it. The kitchen is largely a one-woman operation, and the food reflects it: injera that's properly tart and springy, stewed lentils and collards that take their time, and a shared platter loaded with enough variety to make the table a conversation. Come with people you like, because eating solo here would be missing the point.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Ethiopian Restaurant · Best of Denver

1. Westword 2023 · Best Green Chile Cheeseburger · Best of Denver

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.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Drunken Noodles · Best of Denver

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1. Westword 2023 · Best Afternoon Tea · Best of Denver

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.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Indian Restaurant · Best of Denver

The heat levels at this Edgewater Thai spot are not a performance; the chiles do actual structural work, balancing galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime, and ginger rather than just torching everything in their path. Curries arrive thick and deeply spiced, and the papaya salad dressing pulls no punches with lime and fish sauce. Order mild if you need to, but the kitchen built this menu for people who don't. Sloan's Lake is two minutes away, just in case.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Thai Restaurant · Best of Denver

Wood-fired pizza shop in Denver's LoHi neighborhood, where the charred, garlicky pies lean into their New Haven roots without being precious about it. The menu runs white and red, and a frozen Negroni is always on offer, because of course it is. The team also runs a Mexican spot around the corner, and that same willingness to ignore what a dish is "supposed" to be carries over here. Casual, counter-order energy with pizzas that tend toward crisp, smoky, and just cheesy enough.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Pizzeria · Best of Denver

A LoHi brewery where the patio is basically the point: a massive open-air front deck and an enclosed back area with picnic tables sized for groups, dogs included without a second thought. The taps are solid, food trucks rotate through on a regular schedule, and live music fills out the week. If you happen to be walking a dog in the neighborhood and need a reason to stop, Zuni Street has already thought of that.

1. Westword 2023 · Best Patio for Pets · Best of Denver

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