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The Denver restaurant scene has ballooned this fall, with multiple new openings from fast-casual counters to fine dining. Creativity is the defining factor, whether modern takes on traditional Taiwanese fare, shape-shifting Southern, or clever cocktails. Bakeries are rising up too, with regional grains taking center stage.
Here, a baker’s dozen of great new places to eat and drink for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Jump Ahead:
- BearLeek
- Berliner Haus
- Broderick
- DGO Mexican Grill
- Edgewater Public Market: Gladys
- Edgewater Public Market: Saigon Noodle Club
- Edgewater Public Market: Tessa Deli
- Mian Fresh Noodle Bar
- Moon Raccoon Baking Co.
- Pig and Tiger
- Rebel Bread Cafe
- Rougarou
- Work & Class and Dayshift
Price ratings are based on average entrée cost:
- $: under $15
- $$: $16 to $20
- $$$: $21 to $30
- $$$$: $31 and higher
Read More: The 25 Best Restaurants in Denver This Year
BearLeek
- Location: 2611 Walnut St., Denver (RiNo)
- Cuisine: Modern American
- Price: $$$
Chefs Rema Maaliki and Harrison Porter have dreamed up a sleek underground dinner spot showcasing their global culinary journeys covering Denver, New York City, Seattle, Sydney, and Melbourne. Here in town, they’ve both worked at Mercantile—where they met—and Brasserie Brixton, and with BearLeek they’re offering a concise menu of shareable small plates and entrées.
Maaliki says being guided by seasonal ingredients and reducing waste are important themes in the kitchen. Don’t miss the rotating bread service with gummy bear-shaped compound butter, the French onion tartlet, or thoughtfully built vegetable dishes (grilled cabbage, roast turnips, and Mediterranean beets are fall favorites). During happy hour (Tuesday through Friday from 4:30 to 6 p.m.), the brisket skewers with beef fat caramel and the $12 burger are musts.
Third partner and beverage director Carlos Hugo Meza calls the Regular Architecture–designed space “sexy and intimate,” making it perfect for a date night. But seats at the community table or chef’s counter can be a great way to make new friends over creative bites.
Read More: RiNo’s BearLeek Gets Playful With Dessert
Berliner Haus
- Location: 3200 Pecos St., Denver (LoHi)
- Cuisine: Mediterranean by way of Germany
- Price: $
One of Denver’s best food trucks has found a permanent home inside Avanti Food & Beverage. Berliner Haus specializes in döner served in several ways: as classic lamb and beef, chicken, or falafel sandwiches on fluffy pita, loaded with fresh veggies and bold sauces; on rice (owner Niko Diamantopoulos says tipsy European club goers order it this way because sandwiches are too easy to drop); as a salad; or even heaped on fries.
Shareables include a trio of dips (hummus, roasted eggplant, and whipped feta), feta-stuffed dates, and a Mediterranean grazing board heaped with all of these, plus olives, cheeses, and dolmas. Just save room for locally made baklava and semolina custard pie.
Broderick
- Location: 1080 S. Gaylord St., Denver (Washington Park)
- Cuisine: Cocktails
- Price: $
Tim Felkner and Patrick Stern launched Uncle Tim’s Cocktails in 2022 as a bottled mixed-drink company with a tiny tasting room in Ruby Hill. Their bottlings, from an herbal Negroni to an unusual gin old fashioned, proved so popular that they outgrew the tasting room and set their sights on Old South Gaylord. Their new cocktail bar, dubbed Broderick after the street in San Francisco where they once shared an apartment, debuted in August with a core lineup of classic drinks available on the rocks or as sampler trios, plus originals like the Gardener’s Dilemma made with mezcal, cilantro, ginger, serrano, and lime; favorites from the owners’ San Francisco days like the Spa Collins, a gin old fashioned with added cucumber, lemon, ginger, and mint; and mocktails like the Bright Eyed with hibiscus, rose, pink peppercorn, and lime.
Snacks (olives, roasted nuts, pickles, and truffle potato chips) and sandwiches (the Gino Panino line from Rebel Bread) are also available. The comfy couches, leather chairs, and rustic wooden tables lean DIY chic, giving the place a lived in feel despite its young age. Check Broderick’s calendar for comedy nights, live music, and other happenings.
DGO Mexican Grill
- Location: 1703 Federal Blvd., Denver (West Colfax)
- Cuisine: Mexican
- Price: $$
DGO is short for Durango, Mexico, where gorditas made with wheat flour are a regional specialty. Here, the pudgy disks are crisped on the outside then split open and stuffed with nearly 20 different filling options, from rajas con queso (grilled poblano chile strips with cheese) to chile rojo or verde to house specials like La Huevona (a fried egg with your choice of meat). You can get your gorditas made with corn masa if you prefer, and you can also choose from a wide range of tacos, burritos, molcajetes, and mariscos. We suggest starting with a gooey plate of chorizo-topped queso fundido to keep your hunger at bay while you decide.
Edgewater Public Market
- Location: 5505 W. 20th Ave., Edgewater
- Cuisine: Food hall
- Price: $–$$$
Edgewater Public Market is far more than just a food hall. Its variety of retail businesses makes the spacious venue a great place to round out your holiday shopping, with knitting supplies, books, and craft chocolates among the options. A trio of new culinary choices will keep you fueled while you shop or draw you back just for the food.
Gladys
Gladys began serving its vegan menu at an Edgewater counter in 2021, earning early attention for its smoked celery root Reuben (deservedly so, for its mouthwatering mashup of flavors and textures), among other plant-based cuisine. With a move from the food hall to a larger restaurant space at the front of the building (previously occupied by Meta Burger), Gladys has expanded its menu, offering fast-casual counter service for lunch and full table service for dinner.
That Reuben is still a menu fixture, but you’ll also find seasonal vegetable plates (fried Brussels sprouts with salsa macha and citrusy beets with almond cream are hot right now), kabocha squash gnocchi, and a nostalgic spinach-artichoke flatbread. Summer’s savory funnel cake topped with tomato, peach, and basil is long gone, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a winter version.
Read More: The Chefs at Gladys Will Make You Love Veggies as Much as They Do
Saigon Noodle Club
Saigon Noodle Club is the latest from Long Nguyen and Shauna Seaman, who ran Pho King Rapidos first as a food truck and then at Avanti Food & Beverage from May 2023 to January 2025. We love the flexibility of the build-your-own rice noodle and salad bowls, which you can top with lemongrass pork or chicken, grilled beef, marinated tofu, or crispy egg rolls. The beefy pho doesn’t disappoint either, and if you’re not feeling soupy, you can order the Pho Sizzle, which comes with wok-seared noodles and all the beef and toppings of the classic pho.
If you’re looking for stocking stuffers, grab a jar of house-made tingly chile crisp—or make it two, since you’ll need some for your own kitchen.
Tessa Deli
Vince Howard has been slinging top-notch deli sandwiches at Tessa Deli on East Colfax avenue since 2019, and now west-siders can get a taste of his Cubanos, Reubens, muffulettas, and chopped cheeses. Like any good deli, Tessa also makes daily soup specials and meal-size salads, as well as homey desserts like banana bread, carrot cake, and chocolate chip cookies.
Mian Fresh Noodle Bar
- Location: 7350 E. Hampden Ave., Denver (Hampden South)
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Price: $
Hand-pulled noodles are one of the tastiest trends in Chinese restaurants right now. It’s a tricky skill that takes years of practice to master, so you won’t find them everywhere. “Mian” means noodle in Mandarin, though, so you know you’re at the right place at this spot, which opened in summer. For wok-seared dishes, the mapo tofu (also available on rice) and dan dan noodles offer a blazing taste of Sichuan, or try a comforting bowl of the signature beef noodle soup for a dose of rich broth with warming spices. Kids will love the cartoonish animal buns for dessert.
Moon Raccoon Baking Co.
- Location: 2839 W. 44th Avenue, Denver (Sunnyside)
- Cuisine: Bakery
- Price: $
Kate Lange and Zoe Deutsch launched Moon Raccoon on New Year’s Day 2020 as a cottage bakery with online sales and pop-ups at farmers’ markets and other Denver locations over the past five years. This September they debuted their retail bakery in a takeout-only Sunnyside spot. Here, the bakers create delectable laminated pastries like croissants and kouign amann alongside cookies, brownies, cinnamon rolls, tea cakes, and other sweet and savory treats. Everything’s made with Colorado ingredients, such as Dry Storage flour, Wisdom Poultry eggs, Five Freedoms Dairy milk and cheese, and produce from multiple Front Range and Western Slope farms.
Fill up a takeout box, grab a coffee, and choose a few extras from the retail shelf and fridge, where locally made Sfoglina pastas, Lottie’s Meats sausage, and Not Bad Cooks sauces are available. We’re thinking this could turn into a weekly habit.
Pig and Tiger
- Location: 2200 California St., Denver (Five Points)
- Cuisine: Taiwanese
- Price: $$
Darren Chang and Travis Masar teamed up to offer unique takes on traditional Taiwanese dishes with their Pig and Tiger counter at Boulder’s Avanti Food & Beverage in 2020, and then brought the concept to Five Points in August with a full-service brick-and-mortar. The chefs walk a fine line between the familiar and the uncommon, with bone-in fried chicken laced with spice and fried basil on one end and bright jellyfish salad on the other.
In between, you’ll find cold sesame noodles with creamy sesame dressing, mapo tofu with mixed mushrooms standing in for the typical ground pork, and an L.A. beef roll platter—a tribute to the street food of Chang’s home town—that lets guests build their own wraps with scallion tortillas, beef shank and tongue, and condiments that represent both Mexico and Taipei. Cocktails, wines, and desserts get equal consideration, making Pig and Tiger worthy of multiple visits and continuous menu exploration.
Read More: Pig and Tiger Brings a Taste of Taiwan to Five Points
Rebel Bread Cafe
- Location: 675 S. Broadway, Denver (Baker)
- Cuisine: Bakery
- Price: $
Rebel Bread founder Zach Martinucci began working with chef-restaurateur Kelly Whitaker’s Dry Storage flour more than two years ago and has since completely converted his recipes to 100 percent Dry Storage products. The base blend is called functional flour (grown regionally in Utah, Idaho, and Washington), and Colorado-grown specialty wheat such as White Sonoran and Rouge de Bordeaux add flavor and texture to sandwich breads and sourdough products. Sure, these flours are more expensive than products from larger companies, but Martinucci says he didn’t want to pass that cost on to customers. “It was important to me to keep the price the same, so I balanced things by creating efficiencies in our production,” he says.
Rebel Bread has been around since 2020 but the launch of its new cafe (right next door to the production bakery) in September brought a new way to enjoy its pastries and breads over espresso drinks in a bright and comfortable setting done up in gleaming red and white. The cafe also offers its Gino Panino lineup of sandwiches grilled to order on fluffy focaccia, and fresh-baked pizzas from 5 to 9 p.m. every Friday night. You may fall in love with the focaccia and rustic sourdough loaves to the point where you want to make your own; luckily Rebel also offers baking classes to get you started.
Rougarou
- Location: 2844 Welton St., Denver (Five Points)
- Cuisine: Southern/Bayou
- Price: $$
Mary Allison Wright and McClain Hedges have earned multiple national and international awards for their Cole neighborhood cocktail bar, Yacht Club, which opened in 2023. So when they launched a new restaurant in August focused on Southern cuisine (Wright and Hedges are both from Tennessee), they definitely got our attention.
Rougarou, named for a mythical cryptid that wanders the Louisiana bayou shifting from human to wolf forms, explores traditional Southern dishes but with a light touch and eye toward lesser-known regional specialties and ingredients. Rather than relying too much on cream, butter, and fryer oil (often pushed by celebrity chefs on Southern cooking shows), chef John David Wright builds flavors with acidity through pickling, fermenting, and zingy touches of citrus. The pickled shrimp and West Indies crab salad are perfect examples, although the latter balances the sharp salad with saltines baked in butter and herbs. Fried dishes like the hot and sour catfish come lightly breaded and quickly cooked to let the delicate fish shine; Granddad’s chicken is braised to falling apart (rather than fried) and smothered in tangy white barbecue sauce.
Of course, the cocktails are spot on too: The savory Muffaletta (yes, like the sandwich) and Holy Triniti (a martini with celery, bell pepper, and pearl onion) are mind-bendingly delightful. Don’t miss the buttermilk pie for dessert, something Hedges has been turning out occasionally since Yacht Club first debuted as an island bar inside the Source in 2014.
Work & Class and Dayshift
- Location: 900 E. Hampden Ave., Englewood
- Cuisine: Southern and Mexican; breakfast
- Price: $–$$$
Chef-restaurateur Dana Rodriguez opened Work & Class in a RiNo shipping container in 2014, serving a compelling blend of Mexican and Southern braised meats and sides on a borderless mix-and-match menu. Just over a decade later, she’s unveiled a second version of the restaurant in Englewood, taking over the space that was previously the Feedery at Grow & Gather. The larger space still feels like Work & Class though, with its industrial-chic decor and large murals depicting factory scenes. The menu is almost identical too, but with Englewood exclusives like al pastor pork and a complete weekend brunch (the RiNo original only does brunch once a year, on New Year’s Day).
Completely new is Dayshift, a full coffee bar and breakfast cafe in a separate space off the Work & Class dining room. Expect breakfast burritos and sandwiches, plus a few skillet hashes that take advantage of the produce and hydroponic greens still grown by Grow & Gather founder George Gastis. “I used to serve breakfast once a year and now I’m doing it every f****** day,” Rodriguez says. We’re glad we can get her cooking any time of day.
