A mile high, but down to Earth
City’s tech industry drives cultural scene, culinary hotspots and microbreweries
The silhouette of a massive construction crane loomed against the brilliant reds and purples of a Colorado sunset sky. “This is the classic view of Denver right now,” my friend Rachel Fleming said.
Fleming is an anthropologist who’s lived in Denver for a decade and works in the area’s booming tech industry. We played violin together as teenagers in Santa Fe, N. M., and like many of my high school buddies, she left the West only to wind her way back there because she missed the mountains — because once they’re in your blood, you always do.
The construction crane was looming over The Source, one of the many gourmet food halls that have popped up around the city in the last five years.
It’s in the River North Arts District (RiNo), an epicentre for microbreweries, fancy restaurants, new apartment buildings and abundant street art a 10minute walk from Lower Downtown (LoDo).
“Downtown, I think, has added at least twice as many skyscrapers as it had 10 years ago,” said Fleming. “Most of that area used to be abandoned train yards and industrial buildings and now you go by and see people jogging. It’s like, ‘Oh wow, people actually live here.’ ”
My mom grew up in Colorado Springs, an hour’s drive south of here. I’ve spent the past 22 years visiting the state regularly to see friends or to go snowboarding. I hadn’t spent much time in Denver’s urban centre, but of my 52 Places destinations, I was sure it would feel the most familiar.
I didn’t know, though, that it would remind of another home of mine: New York City.
Here’s a starter guide to the city’s rich art, food and outdoors scenes. Bring good walking shoes.
Food hall fever
The Source, an “artisan” market housed in a reclaimed1880s’ iron foundry with a new skyscraper hotel attached, was one of three food halls I went to in six days. Industrial in design, its centrepiece is a fresh and tasty sit-down restaurant, Acorn.
I’d make a return trip for another flight from Crooked Stave, a brewery specializing in ciders and sour beers.
My favourite was the more casual Central Market, set in an airy, refurbished 14,000-square-foot building in RiNo. It offers take-home butchery and seafood — as well as gourmet pizza, salads and ice cream. (It felt most analogous to St. Roch Market in New Orleans, where I’d been on stop No. 1 of this trip.) Also enticing, particularly for the younger set, is Avanti F&B in the hip Lower Highlands (LoHi) neighbourhood across the river from downtown. A collective test kitchen for local chefs, it has a terrific view, outdoor fire pits and a lively bar scene that rages until 1 a.m. on weekends, save room for the $4 s’more with Nutella and bacon from the Brava! Pizzeria della Strada stand. Hidden views In contrast to those sprawling food halls, the entrance to my one can’t-miss restaurant of the trip, El Five, was located in an actual parking garage in LoHi.
Go early or make a reservation, and you can breeze past the host and up the elevator to the fifth floor (L5, get it?). The Mediterranean tapas cuisine was excellent, but you’re there for the spectacular three-sided views.
Best of all is the wallpaper, made of reclaimed Egyptian movie posters, surrounding diners with forlorn, beautiful faces who look like they could use a drink. Gathering spot The $54-million renovation of Union Station, a 1914-vintage train depot, has turned it into something like New York’s Ace Hotel — a hip gathering spot — only with transportation schedules. The station’s lobby is filled with library-like long tables and comfy leather chairs where a diverse cross-section of the city type away on their laptops. I loved the farmto-table sandwiches at the light-filled Mercantile Dining & Provision so much I went twice. The same company behind Union Square, Sage Hospitality, also runs Denver’s newest hip hotel, The Maven, where I stayed (for $169 to $209, plus tax and a $20-a-night amenities fee) next to Coors Fields on a historic site called the Dairy Block that once housed a dairy.
The lobby has a similar library-like feel, plus an indoor Airstream trailer that sells coffee and breakfast burritos.
Hotel or museum?
You know a hotel is doing something right when museum directors ask if you’ve visited it. The Art, a Hotel where I stayed one night for $235 has a mesmerizing Leo Villareal light-design installation at its entrance, one of Deborah Butterfield’s life-size metal horses that looks like it was woven with twigs, and a video of dogs going up and down the elevator with you. It’s in walking distance of all major art institutions.
Museum or living room?
Tired of seeing art displayed in plain white rooms? Make a special trip to the vastly expanded and newly reopened Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art. Named after the late abstract painter and Denver resident Vance Kirkland, it features the work of some 1,500 artists and designers, laid out in a unique salon style. Diamond-shaped chairs by Frank Lloyd Wright and an undulating cardboard ottoman from Frank Gehry might be next to a painting from an obscure Colorado surrealist.
ASingular collection
The will of the pioneering abstract expressionist painter Clyfford Still (19041980) stipulated that his collection be awarded to a U.S. city that presented the best plan for a museum solely dedicated to showing it in its entirety. Denver won, and the result is the Clyfford Still Museum, an impressive concrete structure with huge walls for displaying the artist’s immense canvases, and textured ceilings that let in daylight in fractured patterns.
On the street and on tap
The best way to see Denver’s booming art scene is to simply walk around RiNo, where many businesses commission murals to draw in customers, and an art event literally puts a fresh coat of paint on the neighbourhood resulting in something amazing to see on nearly every public wall. I toured with Alex Roth, a Colorado native who works for the luxury travel club, Inspirato, and offered to be my guide. He also introduced me to the art of wandering into Denver’s many microbreweries, such as Our Mutual Friend, which itself had a mural storefront of neon-coloured camouflage. Outdoors near your doorstep Confluence Park, which reopened last year after a two-year renovation, is more like a set of river trails. Pop by for views of the water, and to see a cross section of the city, by bike or foot. The unprepared can pick up something at the flagship REI store right on the park and a tourist attraction in itself, built in a landmark former power company plant. Gaining altitude You don’t have to go far for a more immersive natural experience. Red Rocks Amphitheatre is also a great place for hiking and watching the moon rise over the plains. And Chautauqua Park in Boulder, an introduction to the vast array of hiking and rock climbing in the Flatiron Mountains, is accessible from Denver by a 50-minute Regional Transportation Denver bus, plus a short taxi or ride share to the trailhead. The evening I went, we happened upon dozens of juniors and seniors from Silver Creek High School in nearby Longmont taking their prom pictures. Trudging through spring snow in a ballgown seems to be a particularly Coloradan rite of passage.