As the heart of Denver evolves with an ever-growing art scene, restaurants serving cutting-edge cuisine continue to emerge — elevating the city’s dining scene to rival any American city.
As exhibit A, I tried out Tag on downtown’s Larimer Square. Declaring itself the home of “Continental Social Food,” the busy, warmly lit restaurant offers a small, but wide-ranging menu of perfectly made dishes to provide something for every visitor.
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For starters, I recommend the Roasted Spanish Octopus, prepared delicately with chorizo and beans. But, the French Onion Dumplings with gruyere, parmesan and cheddar also offer a unique flavor. While I cleaned off my appetizer plates, I perused the very thorough wine list and the cocktail menu that changes with the seasons.
A specialty of the house is Tag’s Peruvian Bay Scallops with celery root puree and yucca chips, but I went with the Local NY Strip – sourced from some very fine Colorado-based beef.
These days, chefs seem afraid of cooking meat. Since I’m not ordering a pet when I sit down to eat, I order a medium steak in the U.S. and medium well in Europe. This reviewer brings it up only because the kitchen crew at Tag absolutely nailed the cooking time on their NY Strip. The restaurant is simply on the rails across the board.
To demonstrate its all-inclusiveness, a menu proud of its meat and fish makes a detour over to a complete sushi section for interested visitors. Some of the more unique flavors rolling out on rice include Tempura Shrimp, Soft Shell Crab and a little bit of that same NY Strip.
Tag’s dessert menu varies from night to night, but a quick perusal of that night’s options confirmed that the pastry chef excelled at both preparation and presentation. The Bananas Foster-inspired pudding and cake that found its way to my table was a work of art and big enough to share.
This Denver destination has no sense of inferiority over its flyover location, and it shouldn’t. The level of culinary craftsmanship underway within its walls would be right at home in New York, New Orleans, Las Vegas or any of the nation’s more dining-centric towns. Denver has a gem here.
