The Kitchen Denver

Had some high hopes.
Left with quite a few ‘nopes’.
Don’t think I will be back.
Unless for vino and a snack.
That little poem is for you. And this review is for last night, Jan 27^th at the location on 16^th and Wazee.
Let me begin my review by saying that the staff is AWESOME. I sat alone, waiting for my late, late date (almost 1 hour), and the staff were very sensitive to my plight. So much so that they brought me a free appetizer! Which also turned out to be the second best item I ingested that evening.
My three stars are for food value, the bang for my buck (or my company’s buck). So disappointed here.
I ordered three oysters (about $ 10). Oysters were really yummy, served with the normal fixings. The geography from where they were harvested spanned British Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts and Washington.
Now I never judge a restaurants cooking ability on raw seafood alone. Honestly I wish I would have stuck to the uncooked items, because what was cooked was overcooked and lacked flavor. Except for my complimentary pork belly app, which was oh so yummy and was accompanied by sauerkraut (great combo!).
I am a scallop lover. I could eat them every night. So I ordered the diver scallops with mashed potato, trumpet mushroom and bacon. They were cooked too long, a bit tough and too crispy on the outside for my liking. It was like eating a seafood hockey puck. I’m not really sure what the mushrooms were supposed to add. Not much flavor there at all. I ate everything on my plate only because it was past 10pm in my home time zone.
My friend had the Koberstein Ranch steak. I believe this was the most expensive item on the ‘mains’ menu. Absolutely terrible. Tough, thin in thickness, little flavor. It looked like something you would get at a rest home cafeteria. There was a rutabaga mash (trying to be mashed potatoes) as a side. Too, too sweet for me and the consistency was chunky/​funky. Also there were roasted root vegetables — carrots and turnips. Those were just ok.
We also ordered the pumpkin bruschetta a second appetizer. Toast topped with a pumpkin mash, pesto, and goat cheese. I liked the salty sweet combo. Wasn’t mind blowing but way better than the main courses.
We both ordered cocktails. She two glasses of the Persian Lemon. Which she loved and I hated (sweetness overkill). I had the Las Vegas Turnaround which was a little too bitters and ginger heavy. It was a nice tall glass though. Between a glass of wine, that Vegas and altitude… I was feeling pretty good.
The restaurant has a nice atmosphere. There are several sections of seating. We were in the very back, away from the windows. Crowd was mostly young professionals. I will say that the wait station where staff enters orders is annoyingly placed right in the middle of the dining area. Having staff discuss work flow and issued as they pass is distracting.
Overall, was a let down after reading a few reviews before arriving, but wouldn’t say I’d never return.

The Kitchen was a great place to get a nice dinner in downtown!
Our server, Skylar, was attentive and was knowledgable about the menu.
The Moscow mule wasn’t the best– but the Steak made up for it!
Great atmosphere– fast service– good food

I love the non-​traditional, unique and trendy restaurants best and that’s The Kitchen!!! Enter into a warehouse setting and you can see the bartender using his mixology skills to make one of their unique cocktails. Service was friendly and perfect. Dinner was delicious. The farm to table ingredients in most of the dishes make the food fresh and seasonal. Dont pass up the pumpkin bruschetta which was a table favorite for us. They have an extensive beer and wine selection with many local breweries featured. Highly recommended if you are in the Denver area!!!

Overall it was solid. Service was good and the dining room is beautiful. Nothing was fantastic flavor wise. I would go back for small plates and a glass of wine for sure. For the price, the kitchen next door has similar menu items and the flavored tend to be better.

I recently went here with my Aunt and mom and loved it! We had a reservation for 7:30 and were seated immediately upon arrival. We were seated in the back room of the restaurant. It was less busy and more quiet back there so if that is your thing ask to be seated in the back but I would have wanted to sit in the front of the restaurant where it was busy but it was too full so, oh well! Upon being seated I glanced over the menu and it was full of yummy goodness! After looking over the drink menu I ordered the persian lemon while my aunt and mom ordered the possession obsession. When they brought the drink to the table and I took my first sip… the persian lemon tasted sweet like candy to my soul! Oh boy was it tasty. Im not into tequila but from what they said the possession obsession was impeccable tasting as well.
Their menu is constantly changing however when I went the following items are worth ordering for sure!
–Cheese platter. Especially make sure it has the goat cheese with colorado made honey. It was so tasty and with the house made bread, it was over the top good. The two other cheeses were pretty good as well but not as good as the blue cheese.
–The pork chop which is what I ordered was over the top AMAZING! It was juicy, perfectly seasoned and everything you want in a pork chop. It is a huge chop too so be prepared to eat.
–The lamb shank was another notable item. It fell off of the bone and was so tender.
The kitchen does it right. Their portion sizes are just right and their food tastes amazing. There is something on the menu for everyone even though the menu isn’t that extensive. The service was on point and there was always someone coming to the table to clean up dirty plates, refill our drinks, etc. The only downside of the time I visited this fine establishment was their dessert menu was less than average. Nothing really interested me on it which is pretty hard to do since I LOVE sweets! Overall, I highly suggest this awesome restaurant in lodo (lower downtown) Denver!

Made reservations for Sunday Brunch for the Broncos Game. We were sat at a table that was awkward, on one side was the stand for waitresses to input orders, on the other was a column. Considering I had reservations, I would have expected a better table. I didn’t ask them to change us, because the girlfriend got settled in. To me its about the food not the placement of the tables anyways.
I had the Niman Ranch Ham, which was essentially Eggs Benedict. The dish was amazing. My ONLY complaint is that the poached eggs were med to hard cooked, and I prefer a runny yolk when it comes to all eggs. Honestly, by the time the waitress came, I had one of them already ate, and couldn’t see any sense in asking them to redo the poached eggs, they were that tasty. The bread is soft and sweet, being Challah bread. Paired extremely well with the rest of the dish. The ham was delicious, not dried out, honestly I couldn’t cook it better myself.
The potatoes were standard country style, cubed and fried. However, red onions were paired with them, and they were pickled. I typically add onions to my potatoes, and they do add quite a bit of flavor; however, the pickled onions added a nice acid /​salt balance to the potatoes. I think I will be adding this to my tricks when cooking for others.
The Girlfriend had the French Toast, made with the same bread that I had. It was amazing too. French Toast doesn’t take much to perfect, but the maple syrup with infused cinnamon. Pecans, I believe, were on the plate. Honestly very well done.
All in all great experience.

Apparently people in Denver are no better than people in NYC in terms of willingness to pay for meh, mediocre meals. Just moved to Denver, went to the Kitchen after reading Unilocal reviews stating it’s awesomeness. Not so much!
The staff is lovely, young, wannabes! Adorbs in terms of haircuts-​but, we went there for food.
Eggs Benedict which they call Niman Ranch Ham-​wtf!?! Still, we ordered it along with coffee. May I say-​the only sweetner they could come up with was «artificial stevia» again, wtf??? We had to try so hard to get someone’s attention-​our gorgeous waiter with the fab hair could not hear us saying «sir, excuse me… excuse me Sir! Finally, after a long wait he brought us brown sugar cubes… I’m thinking «Do I have to go in the fucking kitchen and say where is your white sugar?» But I was grateful and said thanks.
Oh the food part-​were you wondering when I was going to get there?
Eggs Benedict, remember? Renamed Niman Ranch Ham* poached eggs, hollandaise, izzio’s challah & house potatoes 15
It arrived… on some kind of white-​ish bread-​challah is jewish-​eggs benedict are not. The sweet dry, untoasted and did I say cold? challah did not sync well with that seriously organic brown sugar cubes-​just saying.
Bottom line-​cold, yes friends, cold, cold eggs, cold hollandaise, cold bread, um I mean cold challah.
The Kitchen ain’t hot-​yet. Challah back son!
#thekitchen

Lots of very nice touches helped support the 4 star rating, a few to mention like two complimentary waitstaff for our table, a kind hostess, warm towels after my meal and home made sparkling water. Not to mention the fine cuisine,.the hand made mint sorbet made on site was fantastic! If you are in the neighborhood I would highly suggest an evening spent here.

The kitchen came highly recommended from our friends… So we went out for a nice night on Friday.
Ambiance was nice, our cocktails were all good too… The food was pretty good but slightly overpriced… My biggest problem was the service. I was warned that service is not great in this town bc there are a bunch of younger people with no work ethic. Our server was nice but so indifferent… We didn’t have Silverware when the meal came… My friend ordered a glass of wine to go with her dinner and he forgot and brought it at the end of the meal… After dinner our plates were left in front of us for 10 minutes while servers walked around aimlessly. I said something loud enough for our server to hear and then they were cleared. My friend asked for dessert menus and she was cut off by the server that ran to another table bc he thought he was needed there. He didn’t return for 10 minutes which is when we discussed leaving and doing dessert elsewhere.
Overall not my worst experience in a restaurant but it was the first time we went out for a nice meal down town and were sadly disappointed.
The biggest problem is that our server never acknowledged anything was wrong… I expect good service when I pay 50/​person. a simple «I’m sorry» and an effort to buy the wine that was ordered to accompany a meal yet came after. No manager presence either. I ran restaurants for 10 years and would never have had this many mishaps take place without doing something small to offset … It’s amazing what a complimentary dessert will do to fix someone’s experience. Maybe we just went to the wrong place?
Ps the Gouda balls were great yet need a cranberry /​blackberry jam sauce to accompany.

The service was good, the drinks were ok but not strong and not large. However, the food was delicious and my lamb was perfect. It fell right off the bone and the cauliflower purée was fantastic! They aren’t nearly as loud as The Kitchen Next Door which is in the Union Station. That is more beer and hipster and this one is more upscale and grown up. We ordered heavily with plenty of drinks and I think our tab for three of us was about $ 220. There were three of us, we ordered pricier food, about three mixed or straight booze each and each had dessert so it was well priced in my opinion. I would recommend reservations. We went on a Wed evening after a large snow storm and it was busy so I can imagine it gets packed on a weekend evening that has nice weather! It’s very conveniently located centrally downtown and within walking distance of a few hotels and attractions. (Do not make 16^th street mall one of those attractions unless you like pan handlers). I digress, back to the staff. They always kept our water filled, drink orders were timely and did a good job on explaining the special which can sometimes be a bumbling mess. My husband ordered the special which was seafood pot pie and let’s just say there were absolutely no leftovers. My friend is a vegetarian and like most places don’t have a ton of choices but they had enough to choose from to his satisfaction. I would recommend it for small groups and couples.

So tastey! So cute! Can’t wait to come back.
Steak frites, great portion for a hungry dinner or to share for lighter appetites — and medium rare is melt in your mouth delicious. We split this for lunch and opted for the garlic fries (highly recommend). It also came with a plain but surprisingly yummy arugula salad that balanced the plate well.
The WA oyster of the day was medium to small with a great creamy flavor.
Reason for 4 of 5 stars — We had a glass of red wine which was very average table wine.

It was good, but not great. Wanted to like The Kitchen more, and they did try to please. Perhaps they were having an off night as it was very crowded. Sadly, most of our food seemed a bit too salty. Then, our companion’s pork chop was not cooked to order. It took a while for them to notice, and a longer than expected time to receive a re-​cook. They did apologize, and kindly offered us a dessert on the house at the end of the meal.
Maybe we’ll try them again when they’re not so busy.
PS — the house-​baked bread and the Sticky Toffee Pudding were excellent. Hats off to that baker and pastry chef.

Anniversary dinner. If you like pretentious, overpriced, poorly prepared food with condescending wait staff this is you spot. My lamb arrived stringy and cold. While the portion was small it was inedible.
I informed my waiter Adam, and rather than pick up my plate and heat my food he told me it should be served at room temp. As I said above his response was condescending as if I’d never eaten lamb before. So I looked it up. Cooking temperature should be between 300 – 375 degrees and the internal cook temperature should be served no lower than 140°. This was my anniversary. I wanted to enjoy my evening with my wife. So I did not dispute. Nonetheless, I was irritated by the response and insulted. What happened to the customer always being right?
As it turned out my wife’s halibut was mediocre at best certainly not to the standard of a restaurant of this alleged caliber. To be honest, it was the worst restaurant experience I have had in recent memory. We had this meal over a month ago. I did not want to write a review with anger. But, after a month, I remain convinced. readers have a right to know my experience and determine whether they choose to dine at The Kitchen.

Sit at the bar and ask for Christal, order anything she tells you is good and ask her to make you her favorite cocktail. You can thank me later!
This very comfortable and stylish eatery is full of unexpected delights in both the food and cocktail department. I had lunch and dinner there a day apart and will go back again before I leave.
The food is prepared simply and deliciously, try the Spaghetti Bolognese and the Bruschetta, they are incredible and the Bruschetta is unlike anything you’ll have tried before likely (and tastier).
The atmosphere is very upbeat and fun, people are connecting, talking and having fun everywhere you look. If I lived in Denver this would be my go to place. But from now on, it will be my go to place when I’m here, I wish I could transport it back home.

Unicorn Tears for breakfast? Why yes! It happens at the KITCHEN!
I am so incredibly impressed with the Kitchen– My party of 12 descended a half hour early on a Sunday, and they graciously seated us and immediately had those yummy breakfast drinks we all live for coming our way. The bloodies were hearty, the mimosas fresh and bubbly, and UNICORN TEARS– The palest bubbly violet gin drink you will ever have! **No unicorns were killed to make these drinks***
Brunch Entrees did not disappoint. Our whole group was served AT ONCE! The entire staff must have helped bring everything out, and bam, in synchronicity we all had our plates land at the exact same moment– which is extraordinary. A very Downton Abbey moment for us all!
The food: We tried the Quiche, the Neiman’s Ham (a variation on the Benedict– yum!), the portabello sandwich and more. By far, the standout favorite unique breakfast item was the KEDGEREE– never heard of it– but apparently a British/​Indian fusion of smoked fish, curried rice and eggs. YUM!!! My friend shared :)
Service was stupendous, the space was airy, clean and light, and the food and drinks are top notch. NICE!
Thanks, Kitchen!

Went here for dinner before a concert at the Pepsi Center with a girlfriend and it was fabulous. I had pretty high expectations going in but this place was delish!
So first — kudos to our server. She was absolutely amazing. We got there about 10 minutes before happy hour was over and she made sure we received happy hour on drinks and the apps which was awesome. She definitely went above and beyond to make sure we had a wonderful experience. She explained dishes with passion and a true enjoyment of the food they served. All of our choices were based on her recommendations and she did not steer us wrong!
We started with the cheese plate and it was phenomenal. I’m a sucker for good cheese pairings and they did a fabulous job with the honeys, jams, dried fruit, etc. I was so glad we ordered it. Plus their bread was super fresh and crusty — so yummy. We also split the roast chicken. We both were starting to get full so a half portion of chicken was plenty; however if you’re super hungry I would recommend the whole dish for yourself.
This place is fabulous and a wonderful addition to the 16^th street mall. I work down the street and am sure that I’ll be back soon.

Yum, this place is so good and I love the décor. We started off with the garlic fries (nice large chunks of potato, perfectly crispy, not too greasy, with the perfect amount of garlic flavor), kitchen hummus (great texture with grilled pieces of bread), and the goat gouda gougere (melted cheese bread heaven).
Then for my main, I decided to do local and ordered the koberstein ranch steak. Usually I’m totally against a place cutting my steak, but the presentation was so beautiful and the flavor was so amazing — the richness of the duck fat potatoes, the earthiness of the grilled onions, the lean yet succulent flavor of the steak, and the fresh flavorful pesto made this dish a standout. This has to be one of the steak entrees I’ve ever had.
Then if that wasn’t enough we decided to order some dessert. We shared the peach crisp and the sticky toffee pudding. The peach crisp was rich yet perfect for the season. The sticky toffee pudding came out pipping hot, loved the toffee nut topping, the hot and cool contrasting temperatures — so good.
I will definitely be coming back to this place next time I find myself in the area!

I would do 4.5 stars if I could but the only thing that makes it less than 5-​stars are the prices. But then again maybe that’s because I thought that Denver would be less expensive than LA and these seemed like LA prices. However if I were in LA getting the same service and prices id give 5-​stars so maybe I’m being unfair.
Regardless — highlights:
–mussels — delicious, great sauce, and yummy bread
–beef carpaccio was perfect
–pea bruschetta sounds weird but was one of my favorite items– light and summery with a hint of lemon
–Gouda gougere was nice and surprisingly light for a fried cheese ball. I liked everything else more but that was still interesting and a fun choice
–gin, mint cocktail was delish and refreshing
–great atmosphere
–our server even found out what pandora station was on for us so thank you for that

I’m obsessed with the kitchen. Everything I’ve tried is so fresh and incredibly tasty! And they support local business and the company plants learning gardens in underprivileged schools. The ambiance is incredible, I love the vibe and the space is beautiful. Good service to boot, what more could you ask for?
I would do a food review, I don’t need to you can’t order wrong, my only recommendation would be to order to share!

We came here for dinner tonight –in a snow storm — so glad we made it in one piece-​lol
The hostess was very warm friendly –offered to hang our coats and sat us early because we were about 20 minutes before our reservations…
I was happy about the table — it was by the window… I have to say the tables are a bit close… its okay though–
I looked around and I thought a lot of the bartenders and cooks where pretty good looking .so that’s a plus .lol
Our waiter came over and was super cool and took our drink orders — of course we had café lattes .
After that we enjoyed a cheese plate… yum!
Salads, soup, mussels for dinner — All of it was tasty and I enjoyed my dinner —
We declined dessert because we were stuffed …
I’ll be back — it was good !!
Thanks :)
Next time I get dessert because I came home and ate a ton of dark chocolate.
It took a long time because I was driving in a blizzard —