Denver’s biggest restaurant openings of 2025

Standout chefs and restaurateurs continued to push Denver’s food scene forward in 2025, bringing new life into neglected spaces and introducing diners to novel flavors from around the country and globe. Some of these new restaurants were recognized by the Michelin Guide. Others were long-awaited expansions from chefs looking to make their mark. At least one almost broke the internet. Here are the biggest openings this year.

Alteño

How do you follow up a debut that wins a Michelin star in its first year? By opening another spot that earns a Michelin recommendation in its first year in operation. Alteño, one of five (going on six) concepts run by chef Johnny Curiel and wife and business partner Kasie Curiel, brings the mood and energy of a late-night beach bonfire to the first floor of the Clayton Hotel and Members Club. Curiel’s team prepares his version of a large, family-style dinner (the restaurant is named in honor of his father), featuring plates such as queso fundido, crab-stuffed mushrooms, ribeye tacos and a roasted chicken that falls off the bone. It may be a high-class party, but it’s one that you won’t want to end.

249 Clayton St., Denver

BearLeek

Harrison Porter and Rema Maaliki shot for the moon last summer when they moved into a high-profile basement space in RiNo last used by Osaka Ramen. Their menu — a collaboration that folds in previous work at Denver’s Brasserie Brixton and restaurants in Melbourne, New York and Peru, to name a few — is replete with small dishes, executed with the caliber of French cuisine. Most of all, their plates indulge: finely minced wagyu tartare topped with coconut cream and burnt garlic chili oil, with a side of kettle-style potato chips ($20); a decadent French onion tartlet ($14) meant to split with a beau or friend; and the scene-stealing BearPop ($11), a bear-shaped passionfruit sweet cream popsicle drizzled in black garlic salsa matcha — flavors not often found stateside. Once the overhead lamps cast a direct light on the dishes inside this moody, neon-soaked dining hall, you’ll see.

2611 Walnut St., Denver

Johnny Bechamel’s

A little taste of Johnny Bechamel’s popped up this spring inside the bar of Urban Cowboy, a boutique hotel near the State Capitol. Little Johnny B’s gave Dio Mio’s and Redeemer Pizza’s hospitality group a wood-fired oven to bake delicate Neapolitan-style pizzas. All of that is bigger and better at Johnny Bechamel’s, which opened at the tail end of the year and adds pastas and an assortment of shared plates (four words: chicken matzo ball meatballs) to the equation. The lasagnetta ($28) takes the best parts of a lasagna — the crispy, cheesy crust — and layers it between a bechamel (ay) sauce with oyster mushrooms and topped with pickled beech mushrooms. It’s unlike anything you’d find at Redeemer, Dio Mio or the smaller version at Urban Cowboy.

81 S. Pennsylvania St., Denver

Com Nha Kitchen & Bar

Eating at Com Nha is a spectacle. The inside of the Vietnamese restaurant (which technically opened in December of 2024) is sparkly and lavishly decorated, the spirit of its bar contagious, and the flavors of its dishes bold and brash. The t chefs’ takes on pho, banh mi, soups and tacos are adventurous and feature ingredients bound to raise an eyebrow or two. The bò né steak ($19.95) comes with a sunny-side-up egg and bone marrow, still on the bone. The bún bò huế ($18.95) noodle soup, as I ordered it earlier this year, had a pig’s snout. The fried chicken feet ($11.95) are self-explanatory. This restaurant is a welcome addition to the already strong roster of Vietnamese food in West Denver.

2133 S. Sheridan Blvd., Denver

Kizaki/Margot

It’s difficult to talk about one without mentioning the other, mainly because they share the same home: A sleek, stunning new building on South Pearl Street worthy of an art gallery. The small plates, which both restaurants specialize in — omakase at Kizaki and intricately prepared seasonal ingredients at Margot — are also worthy of an exhibition. Lastly, both restaurants won a Michelin star just months after opening. For Kizaki’s Toshi Kizaki, the award was a culmination of a Denver career that started decades ago at Sushi Den. For Margot’s Justin Fulton, it was a reason to stick around in Denver after bouncing around kitchens for years. For both, it was the start of a beautiful friendship.

1551 S. Pearl St., Denver

Malinche Audiobar

It may not be a restaurant, exactly, but Malinche Audiobar is more than enough to keep the most ardent Jose Avila fans happy until the rest of his oft-talked-about concepts materialize. For his Japanese-style vinyl listening bar, part of a wave of music-focused bars and lounges weaving into the fabric of Denver nightlife, Avila completely flipped the script. Instead of Japanese sakes and whiskeys, there are mezcal and tequila flights. Instead of jazz and folk, Latin cumbias and rock psicodélico liven up the room. Have no room for a kitchen? Cook up tantalizing Mexican and Japanese fusion dishes from behind the bar. Look up: The floor is hanging from the ceiling, covered in insulated area rugs that also absorb sound. Avila said that was by happenstance, but does he believe in such a thing?

1541 Platte St., Denver

Molino Chido

Michael Diaz de Leon had to do some growing — establish a reputation through countrywide pop-ups and start a family — before he was ready for his next act. The former chef at Bruto, who led the restaurant to a Michelin Star, was determined to showcase and elevate Mexico City street tacos with Molino Chido at Stanley Marketplace, de Leon’s home base since November.  The tacos and flautas made with corn masa milled on site, layered with al pastor or bison tongue or, if ya fancy, prime strip loin, hold up to the test and the restaurant’s electric green hues and accoutrements. His business partner, Tommy Lee, whose coaching tree extends far and wide, adds another feather to his cap that includes the Uncle ramen restaurants and Hop Alley.

Located at Stanley Marketplace; 2501 Dallas St., Aurora

Pig and Tiger

The name of Pig and Tiger says it all: This Taiwanese restaurant is for big stomachs and big attitudes. Chefs Darren Chang and Travis Masar began their operation at Avanti in Boulder in 2020. When Pig and Tiger opened in a pocket of Five Points this summer, it arrived fully realized. Chili wontons with shrimp and pork, pork belly buns, L.A. beef rolls, mapo tofu and cold sesame noodles are the stars inside the steely cool of the dining room. Everything is beautiful. No ingredient, flavor or appetite here goes spared.

2200 California St., Denver

The PZA

After rolling around the city for three years, Jake Rothey brought the PZA to the La Alma-Lincoln Park neighborhood at the beginning of the year. His operation — no more than him and another employee, dishing out takeout pies every night as well as a killer lemon-ricotta cheesecake — grew so popular they had to close online orders early to keep up, according to Reddit. The pizzas, named after rap stars, are all naturally leavened and stacked with toppings that just have more kick than other pies in the metro. The Su-Primo ($18), which I’m going to guess is named after legendary hip-hop producer DJ Premier, gives the supreme pizza the deluxe treatment with chorizo and kalamata olives. So don’t rush the process. Just trust it.

644 Santa Fe Dr., Denver

Riot BBQ

The restaurant formerly known as AJ’s Pit BBQ was left without a proprietor (as was the space now used by Johnny Bechamel’s) and seized by the state for unpaid taxes earlier this year following an attention-raising employee walkout led by pitmaster Patrick Klaiber. So Klaiber and his one-time apprentice and ‘Top Chef’ co-participant, Manny Barella, bought the whole restaurant at auction. Now, as Riot BBQ, the pair are giving their smoked meats the love and attention they needed from the get-go. It’s Texas style, shifted across the border to Mexico. The chicken cochinita pibil, pork ribs al pastor and salsa macha coleslaw are flavorful, creative dishes that broaden the city’s smoked barbecue scene and, like Pig and Tiger, prove the power of intercultural collaboration in the kitchen.

2180 S. Delaware St., Denver

Rougarou

Despite concocting cocktails that led to a James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Professionals in Cocktail Service in the category’s first year, everyone who’s been to Yacht Club knows it’s the hot dogs that are the stars at the hip Denver bar. Those were introduced by John David Wright, the brother of co-owner Mary Allison Wright, who now runs the kitchen at Rougarou, their new restaurant in Five Points. The pair and Mary Allison’s husband, McLain Hedges, built an ode to their Southern upbringing. Crab salad ($23), hot and sour catfish ($22), collard greens salad ($15) and chicken slathered in white barbecue sauce ($17) embody the best of chef John David’s homestyle cuisine. Rougarou’s cocktail program, led here and at Yacht Club by Hedges, is every bit as potently refined as that of its counterpart.

2844 Welton St., Denver

Schoolyard Beer Garden

By sheer size, location and clientele that populate it, the new Schoolyard Beer Garden in Denver’s Golden Triangle neighborhood is a smash hit. Taking over the historic Evans school building, City Street Investors realized its best assets were the grounds and school rooms themselves. People wanted to go inside and be where the party is, especially out on the lawn with a frosted beverage as the sun set on a summer day. It’s a bon vibe-ant lifestyle. There are plans to activate the rest of the building, too, which is also used by remote workers scattered around the school. Of the many food options, the elk jalapeno cheddar brat and a simple basket of French fries will do the trick.

1115 Acoma St., Denver

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