Yes, you do have to file your taxes this week — but then you can cheer up with deals on wine, creative cocktails crafted from unusual spirits, a rooftop concert with high-end food and drinks, and more. Here are our six picks for food and drink events around town over the next few days, plus future dates to mark on your calendar.
Monday, July 13
Denver’s Capital Grille outpost, at 1450 Larimer Street, launches the Generous Pour on Monday, July 13. Through September 6, diners can order dinner at the modern steakhouse and, for just $28, add any of seven different wines to their meal. Reds, whites and rosés from around the world are represented. Find out more about the bottles (including glimpses of the artwork adorning their labels) and make a reservation on the eatery’s website.
Food Kitchen Collective (a coalition of local organizations and businesses helmed by the Havana Business Improvement District and Aurora Sister Cities International) will be setting up shop in the parking lot of the Stampede, at 2430 South Havana Street in Aurora, to distribute groceries to people in need on Wednesday, July 15. The goal is to hand out 1,000 bags of food, all of which have been purchased from Aurora businesses; it’s a double whammy of do-goodery, as each purchase supports not only hungry people, but also local restaurants and grocers. If you’re in need, show up between 2 and 5 p.m.; if you want to help, visit the Collective’s donation page, where you can give funds, non-perishable food items, your time or your business’s resources.
Ironton Distillery, 3636 Chestnut Place, is celebrating the launch of two unusual spirits on Wednesday, July 15, with a distiller’s dinner. The drinking establishment’s new kitchen is aiming high, with a four-course menu that includes housemade stracciatella cheese, roasted asparagus and artichokes with walnut romesco, and grilled lemons and scallops with succulent pork belly and smoked-apple glaze. Each dish will be paired with a cocktail made from Ironton’s new Nordic Gold aquavit (a Scandinavian grain liquor heavily spiced with caraway or dill) and Olde Alchemist genièvre, the bold Dutch/French precursor to London gin. Tickets for the 7 p.m. meal will run you $70 and are available now on Eventbrite, where you can also find the full menu.
October’s annual bRUNch Run, complete with booze and bites at the finish line, has proven to be a popular 5K/10K race in a town where people are just as obsessed with an after-work run around Wash Park as they are with bottomless mimosas. So the folks behind the event have chosen Wednesday, July 15 (which fortuitously comes at the end of a punishing heat wave, if not a global health crisis), to kick off Run Fast, Sip Slow — a new speed training series leading up to a virtual one-mile race on Saturday, August 15. Register on bRUNch Running’s website by Tuesday, July 14, and you’ll get a four-week training program dedicated to helping you better your time, with trainer support and swag like run logs, water bottles and race medals for $14.99. While the virtual race won’t include Bloodys and Benedicts at the finish line — you’ll have to make your own — it will give you a leg up on the competition come fall.
Thursday, July 16
Dining out can be tricky these days: nabbing a table and navigating limited menus, changing etiquette standards (hint: you can’t go wrong if you wear a mask) and monitoring other diners’ behavior and your own anxieties. Seeing live music? Even more so. But on Thursday, July 16, Boulder’s Corrida, 1023 Walnut Street, is hosting Dine From Out There (from the folks at music festival producer Live From Out There) so you can indulge your love of fine dining and funk music. Members of Big Gigantic and the Motet will play a set on Corrida’s rooftop patio while guests are treated to a three-course meal with drink pairings. The surf-and-turf-themed menu includes dishes like roasted octopus and cuttlefish with romesco; spring onion falafal with Rancho Gordo beans and tomato and garlic confit; and Wagyu New York strip loin with harissa-spiced patatas bravas. Tickets are already sold out for the 8:15 p.m. set, but you can still snag seats for the 5:30 p.m. slot; find the full menu and secure your ticket, $225, on Tock, and stay up-to-date on future installments in the series on Live From Out There’s website.
Friday, July 17
There’s more to southeast Asian food than pho and panang curry, and while Vietnam and Thailand are well represented in the minds of adventurous diners, neighboring countries are often given short shrift when considering the region. On Friday, July 17, expand your mind and your palate at Cook Street School of Culinary Art’s Southeast Asian street food class. Some familiar dishes are on the menu (chicken satay and dipping sauces from Indonesia; som tam, or green papaya salad, from Thailand), but you’ll also be whipping up Malaysian laksa (coconut curry and tamarind soup with noodles), Laotian khao tom (sweetened sticky rice steamed in banana leaves), Filipino turon (fried bananas) and more. Visit Cook Street’s website for the complete (and completely mouth-watering) menu and to register for the 6 p.m. class ($119).
Keep reading for future food and drink fun….
Saturday, July 18
Brunch — the booziest of meals — is slowly making a return to the Denver dining scene as restaurants cautiously expand their hours. On Saturday, July 18, Edgewater Public Market, 5505 West 20th Avenue, is launching brunch service with a surprisingly affordable menu; from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, you can knock back a Bloody Mary, Irish coffee or Aperol spritz from Roger’s Liquid Oasis for just $6 each. In fact, the most expensive drink on the list rings in at $10 — and that’s for two (count ’em, two) witbiermosas from Barquentine Brewing Co. (the market’s resident brewery). The tight but equally reasonable food menu tops out at $13, with items like green chile or caramel apple pie pizzas; a salmon croissant with chive cream cheese; an Ethiopian burrito (you knew it had to happen sooner or later at a food hall with a real Ethiopian restaurant as a vendor) with eggs, jalapeño, garlic, potatoes and berbere-spiced beef tibs; and a decadent Brie Benedict crepe with oozy cheese, ham, over-easy egg and Hollandaise. Seating — including expanded outdoor space as well as on the rooftop with views of Sloan’s Lake — is first come, first served.
If you’ve shopped all of Etsy (and possibly Amazon) since March, you’re not alone — and you’re probably desperate for some in-person retail therapy. Denver Bazaar is finally returning with an IRL marketplace on Saturday, July 18, and Sunday, July 19. Sloan’s Lake Summer Bazaar, 1565 Raleigh Street, will be opening with some changes to accommodate COVID-19 (extra-wide streets, socially distant vendors and a two-hour shopping window), but with the same mix of craft, food and fashion vendors. Also making a return is the Shop & Sip ticket, $20, which now gets you unlimited spritzes, margs or beer while you shop. Guests who aren’t looking to get snockered can guarantee their entry with a $5 advance purchase. Tickets for two-hour shopping blocks — from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday — are available on the Bazaar’s website . Also keep an eye on the marketplace’s Facebook page for a list of vendors.
Wednesday, July 22
Dallas-based chef Kent Rathbun has had a storied career covering more than three decades, nabbing four James Beard Award nominations and an Iron Chef America title and helming restaurants that run the gamut from modern American fine dining to barbecue to casual Asian eats. On Wednesday, July 22, Rathbun is bringing his skills to a wider audience as Westword‘s own Virtual Social Club hosts a live cooking webinar at 5 p.m. in which he’ll draw inspiration from Colorado, Texas and Florida. Learn how to make a dish inspired by each region: barbecue pecan-crusted trout with grilled tomato butter sauce (Colorado); strip steak with rosemary butter and grilled onion (Texas); and snapper marinated in lime, cilantro and habanero (Florida). Register for the free online event on Eventbrite, where attendees are encouraged to make a donation to the American Heart Association in lieu of paying for the class. Amp up your cooking Rathbun-style by ordering his spice rubs by July 16 to have them in your kitchen by July 22.
Thursday, July 23
When it comes to green chiles, later is better. So those roadside tents you see shilling pale green peppers in early August? Hold your horses, partner; wait until September to procure your bushels and you’ll be blessed with better flavor and more varieties. But learning how to cook with the spicy green and red veggies? That’s a skill you can — and should — cultivate at any time of year. So we won’t look askance at Uncorked Kitchen’s Green Chile Extravaganza on Thursday, July 23. The cooking school/eatery at 8171 South Chester Street in Centennial runs from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. and includes a boozy welcome cocktail as well as instruction on whipping up chile-corn fritters, Hatch scalloped potatoes, calabacitas (a succotash-type dish made of squash, corn, tomatoes and chiles), chile-pistachio brittle and the star of the show: green chile. (Longtime Colorado residents will forgive Uncorked’s curious and redundant reference to the dish as “pork green chile stew” as long as its recipe doesn’t include carrots, celery, bell peppers or other European interlopers.) Sign up for the class on the Uncorked Kitchen website ($95 per person), and by the time chile season truly rolls around, you’ll be an expert at cooking (and eating) fall favorites.
Know of an event or activity that belongs here? Send information to [email protected].