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What does the end of an era look like? On August 2, the Denver hospitality community found out when chef Jennifer Jasinski and co-proprietor Beth Gruitch announced sweeping changes to their restaurant group, Crafted Concepts. Not only would they be closing Stoic & Genuine, their 10-year-old seafood spot in Union Station, on September 1, but they’d be transferring management of French institution Bistro Vendôme and Iberian eatery Ultreia to partners Tim Kuklinski and Adam Branz, respectively. That means they’re returning their focus entirely to their Larimer Square flagship, Rioja, right in time for its 20th anniversary this November. (Well, not entirely—maybe they’d devote some time to this thing called life, too.)
Why is the news of their decision to downsize so momentous? Because the era in question is when Denver’s dining scene truly came into its own—an evolution of which Jasinski and Gruitch have been at the forefront since launching Rioja. As Colorado Restaurant Foundation president (and former Westword restaurant critic) Laura Shunk points out, “It’s hard to remember this now, but in 2004, restaurants like Rioja just didn’t exist here. Most people were eating special-occasion meals in corporate steak houses.”
Even Jasinski and Gruitch, trailblazing as they were, couldn’t quite identify what trail they were blazing. “We kind of put ‘Mediterranean’ as a little tagline on it because we felt like it needed something,” Gruitch says, “[but] I remember when we opened, I kept thinking, ‘Well, it’s just Jen’s food…. I felt like it stood on its own.” Jasinski herself admits, “I still struggle. People ask, ‘What kind of food is it?’ and I’m like, ‘Eh, I dunno.’”
Preceding Denver’s farm-to-table boom, her ingredient-driven fare presented something new to local diners, as did Rioja’s Spain-centric wine list, a departure from the average selection of California this and French that. “It was this undiscovered country,” Jasinski says, “and Beth found all these amazing wines that we thought were bargains for what they were because people didn’t know about them. We thought that was cool.”
It wasn’t just timing, though: Rioja also opened in a place where there was nothing like it. Though Larimer Square was no longer “a block of honky-tonks” by 2004, it wasn’t close to being a dining destination, recalls restaurant consultant John Imbergamo, who has represented Jasinski and Gruitch since the beginning. “Jen and Beth really led the charge for turning it into a local independent restaurant block,” Imbergamo says. He also cites Eric Roeder of Bistro Vendôme—which Jasinski and Gruitch took over in 2006 and relocated to Park Hill in 2023—and Richard Sandoval of Tamayo as part of the initial change. Their success would ultimately encourage the likes of Troy Guard and Frank Bonanno to join them; by 2010, Larimer Square was home not only to the aforementioned restaurants but also such hot spots as TAG, Osteria Marco, Russell’s Smokehouse, Green Russell, and Jasinski and Gruitch’s own Euclid Hall. (That the pandemic led to the closure of most of these establishments is not to discount the microneighborhood’s former-and-hopefully-future heyday.)
Not to mention that Rioja was (and is) being run by two women in an industry that was (and is) “very male-dominated,” as Bistro Vendôme culinary director Tim Kuklinski puts it. “It was a bunch of alpha males, a bunch of testosterone, and Beth and Jen brought a lot of refinement and a feminine touch to food that Denver desperately needed 20 years ago.” 5280 restaurant critic and former food editor Amanda Faison agrees, adding that Jasinski’s “fresh and light” approach to the cuisine at Rioja “has such a distinct flair that I can usually pick it out at an event—always citrusy, usually bold but also a little feminine.”
Speaking of boldness, however, it turned out that Jasinski and Gruitch were only just beginning to assert their dominance on the local dining scene. Demonstrating their extraordinary versatility as restaurateurs, they always sought to answer the question, “What is this town really missing?” in Jasinski’s words. (“Jen has always had what I call a Rolodex of restaurants in her head,” jokes Gruitch.) The aforementioned Euclid Hall joined Rioja and Bistro Vendôme in 2010 just as “gastropub” was entering the mainstream lexicon; there, as Shunk points out, they launched one of Denver’s first high-end beer programs, while serving innovative dishes like pad thai pig ears and mac and cheese with fried squid. In 2014—the year after Jasinski not only placed as a finalist on Top Chef Masters, but also became the first Denver-based chef to receive a James Beard Award for Best Chef—they debuted their highly anticipated concept Stoic & Genuine, the first restaurant to open in Union Station following its historic renovations; in 2017, Ultreia opened there to equal fanfare.
Along the way, of course, Crafted Concepts’ family tree grew and grew—and with it, Jasinski and Gruitch’s influence as mentors. Among their best-known alumni is none other than Dana Rodriguez of Work & Class and Carne (not to mention Casa Bonita) who, when I interviewed her for a profile a couple of years ago, gushed about Jasinski’s teaching abilities. “I will never forget a story about gnocchi…. One day I was doing pasta. When people see fire, they get excited, [and] I thought it was cool! So I dropped my gnocchi in the oil; it was super hot, so it got a big flame. She didn’t say anything at first. Then she said, ‘Finish that, and then you’re gonna make me another one with no fire.’ She never stopped me from what I was doing, but she made me make both and then she said, ‘Taste [the first one]. What does this taste like?’ Literally burning gasoline. Then she said, ‘Now taste this one,’ and I’m like, ‘OMG! What happened?’ She doesn’t get frustrated; [she knows that] the way that you learn is fucking things up.”
Coperta chef de cuisine Kenny Minton has a similar memory. “I was the most green cook to ever exist and they took a chance on me [at Rioja],” he asserts, recalling, “There was this octopus chicharrón that was just a garnish for a dish, but it was a seven-day process. It [covered] everything from how to work with tapioca starches to how to perfectly dehydrate something to exactly what temperature you needed to fry it at. And if all of these factors weren’t perfect through the entire process, it wouldn’t puff up…. It started to build that fundamental attention to detail.”
Ultreia partner and executive chef Adam Branz, for his part, notes that “sometimes I’ll be in a kitchen somewhere and I’ll hear something from a cook, and I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s chef Jen.” I can hear her voice through someone and know they worked together at some point.” Branz recalls a sample lesson: “The subtle art of subtraction. Younger chefs will overthink, over-plate, over-conceptualize—overdo everything, really—and chef Jen is so good at getting you to see that you need to take things away instead of adding them.”
Such teachings extend beyond the kitchen, of course. “Jen and Beth preach this one-guest-at-a-time mentality that’s always sort of stuck with me, where if I could reach just one guest, I could check off that day as a good day,” Branz adds. “Even just touching a table and saying I hope somebody enjoyed something—that’s something I still try to do every single day.” Kuklinski agrees: “Beth has a way of really caring for people, both employees and guests. You feel taken care of when she’s with you.”
For that matter, their influence extends far beyond the four walls of their restaurants. While Jasinski has been a leader on the sustainability front—she’s a proponent of local sourcing and participates in the Smart Catch program, which campaigns for a more responsible seafood supply chain—Gruitch devotes her energy to industry advocacy. The former board chair of the Colorado Restaurant Association, she currently serves on the board of such nonprofit associations as EatDenver and Visit Denver, the latter of which inducted the pair into the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame in 2023. Together, they’ve also contributed to causes like the hunger-relief organization We Don’t Waste, the job-training program Work Options, and pandemic aid. As Shunk points out, “they banded together with other restaurants to cook for food-insecure neighbors, despite the financially devastating situation in which they found themselves.”
The dynamic duo chalks such endeavors up to common decency, as well as common sense. As Gruitch observes, “There are just things that you get involved with… to support your business but also to hopefully be the change you want to see.” Jasinski, for her part, muses, “I hope my legacy is that a bunch of humans maybe learned something from me, not just [about] the business… but also about being a good human in our society.”
For now, Jasinski’s Rolodex of restaurant ideas continues spinning. “There’s still an al pastor taco place in my mind that I want to do—open-spit, smoky al pastor tacos,” she admits. Perhaps the beginning of a whole new era awaits.
Celebrate Rioja’s 20th Anniversary at These Events
October 3: Jasinksi’s world-renowned mentor, Wolfgang Puck, is coming to Rioja for a wine-paired, multicourse feast of favorites from both his kitchens—including Spago—and hers. Tickets are available for $250.
November 13: Jasinski and Gruitch are hosting a combination anniversary party and fundraiser for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts with a who’s who of the Denver dining scene. On hand to cook for the event will be Troy Guard (TAG Restaurant Group), Dana Rodriguez (Work & Class, Carne, Casa Bonita), Carrie Baird and Max MacKissock (Culinary Creative Group), Alex Seidel (Fruition, Mercantile Dining & Provision), Hosea Rosenberg (Blackbelly, Santo), and Paul Reilly (Coperta), while beverages will be overseen by Todd Leopold (Leopold Bros.), Alan Laws (Laws Whiskey House), and Jon Schlegel (Attimo Wine), among others. Tickets are available for $125; for more information, call 303-820-2282.
