The 14 Best Restaurants in Lakewood
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The best restaurants in Lakewood, according to the experts: 5280, Eater, and The Infatuation have all weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. African Grill and Bar comes out on top.
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Casa Bonita and The Bardo Coffee House hold the next two places. Westword shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with 5280 next.
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Rank 1. African Grill and Bar
Ethiopian
A neighborhood restaurant where the owners greet you like they've been expecting you, African Grill and Bar serves a broad sweep of regional African cooking, not just one country's repertoire. Jollof rice, oxtail stew, black-eyed pea dishes, fish stew, and several kinds of porridge all share the menu. Regulars tend to work through it methodically, which is a reasonable life goal.
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Rank 2. Casa Bonita
Mexican
The pink palace on Colfax has cliff divers, a cave, a waterfall, and enough square footage to get genuinely lost in. Trey Parker and Matt Stone bought and revived this sprawling Mexican restaurant, bringing in chef Dana Rodriguez to fix the food while keeping every piece of the spectacle intact. The taco salad is the order. Come for the sopapillas, the nostalgia, or the sheer commitment to controlled chaos, all at once.
The awards
- The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Wishes for a Smooth Opening · Best of Denver
- Westword 2024 · Best Entree to Order If You Actually Get Into Casa Bonita: Taco Salad · Best of Denver
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Rank 10. Hits The Spot Diner
American
The self-proclaimed home of "the fastest egg in the West" is a classic American diner on Colfax that holds the line while Denver's old-school spots keep disappearing. Cinnamon roll French toast and a six-pound breakfast burrito smothered in green chile are the kinds of details that explain why regulars don't bother with the menu. The green chile is gluten-free, which the burrito's sheer scale makes feel almost responsible.
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Rank 13. Pablito's Burritos
Mexican
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.
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