When a fellow food writer asked to grab a noon-time bite, picking a spot from her hit list was easy: Just one day prior to our meeting the Squeaky Bean began serving lunch.

Perusing the restaurant’s new weekday menu I was thrilled to see pimento toast, a spread food editor Amanda M. Faison raved about back when Max MacKissock was chef of the LoDo restaurant. For a riff on the customer favorite, current executive chef Theo Adley and chef de cuisine Samuel McCandless mix cream cheese, white cheddar, “a large glug” of Frank’s RedHot sauce, diced piquillo peppers, sweet paprika, and cayenne. Adley and McCandless spread the bright orange decadence on pieces of toasted ciabatta from Golden’s Grateful Bread. The dish, which Adley says was inspired loosely by Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune, comes with a spoonful of sweet jam that Adley makes with crisped bacon, onion, sugar, salt, and vinegar. The jam “could make a shoe taste amazing,” the chef says. Maybe so. But I’ll stick to devouring it atop the sinful Southern spread.

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