The Best Restaurants in Denver, by the Record
-
-
-
-
-
-
Rank 369. Reckless Noodle House
Vietnamese Noodles
- Westword 2024 · Best West Coast Transplant · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Shrimp · Best of Denver
-
-
- Eater The Best Bars in Denver
- The Infatuation The Best Bars In Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Rank 420. Bar Dough
Italian
-
Rank 420. Bistro Vendôme
French
A shady patio and a menu that runs from onion soup and escargot to whatever the season suggests: this is a proper French bistro, not a beret-and-accordion situation. The team behind it has a reputation for warm rooms and real hospitality, and the Park Hill dining room earns it. Order the steak frites or linger over happy-hour bubbles; the pacing is entirely up to you.
-
-
Rank 420. Carrera's Tacos
Mexican
-
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2023 · Best Patio for Tortured Writers · Best of Denver
-
The bar and patio at City Park Golf Course overlooks the fairways and the Denver skyline, which is a combination most dedicated nineteenth holes can't claim. It's a casual sports bar setup with TVs inside and cold, cheap beer either direction, drawing golfers waiting for a tee time and golfers celebrating surviving one. The food is solidly fine. The view does most of the heavy lifting, and at a municipal course, nobody's complaining.
-
Rank 420. Cucina Bella
Italian
The strip-mall address on East Alameda is doing this Italian restaurant no favors, but the inside goes full fine-dining with veal marsala, house pasta, and pizzas that take themselves seriously. The kitchen also folds in the brothers' Mexican heritage on the brunch menu, which keeps things from getting too reverent. Regulars apparently start with the calamari and work backward from there.
-
- Thrillist The Best Bars in Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2023 · Best Pickle Shots · Best of Denver
-
Rank 420. Dragonfly Noodle
Asian Noodles
Noodles pulled and cooked in-house is a rarity in Colorado, and Dragonfly Noodle makes them on the premises, which gives the ramen a texture that dried product simply can't fake. This casual noodle shop on the 16th Street Mall works its way across Asia, moving from Japanese ramen to Singaporean, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese dishes. The broths run deep and traditionally built, with just enough tinkering to keep things interesting.
-
A walk-up sandwich counter tucked at the end of a thin alley in Five Points, with old photos of famous Dukes lining the path to the window. The menu runs to four sandwiches, which sounds like a dare until you see the chopped cheese, a New York import of griddle-smashed beef and white cheddar on a soft hoagie with pepperoncini. Naming your place "Good Sandwiches" is either false modesty or excellent bait.
-
A food hall just west of Denver where you can walk in for tacos, stay for Ethiopian, and leave with a new tattoo if the afternoon really gets away from you. The layout is easygoing enough that grabbing a drink first while you decide where to eat feels like the obvious move. Vendors rotate and grow, so there's usually something new to investigate alongside the regulars.
-
Rank 420. El Tejado
Mexican
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.
-
Rank 420. Golden Saigon
Vietnamese
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.
-
-
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.
-
Rank 420. 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.
-
Rank 420. Pho Broadway
Noodles
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.
-
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.
-
Rank 420. Queen of Sheba
Ethiopian
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.
-
Rank 420. Steuben's Uptown
American
-
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.
-
-
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.
-
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.
-