Chef Taylor Stark shepherds a creative multicourse menu that abounds with personality, boasting a unique, genre-defying style that draws variously from Nordic, Italian and East Asian cuisines, but nonetheless feels cohesive. Although the menu shifts throughout the year to explore different themes, diners will find a common thread in cooking that highlights ingredients while displaying technical precision and harmonious flavors, with fermentation a frequent motif.

Going back more than four decades, Chef Toshi Kizaki has been a veritable trailblazer of Denver’s sushi scene. He now raises the stakes with this luxurious counter, bringing a new echelon of omakase to the Mile High City. Blending traditional edomae techniques and creative modern flourishes, the extensive menu alternates between small dishes like gorgeously marbled black-and-white sesame tofu and nigiri carefully crafted by Chef Kizaki himself.

Lightning strikes twice for dynamo Chef Johnny Curiel with this parallel concept cheek-by-jowl next to his celebrated flagship. As the name suggests, the small stylish space has a mezcal bar vibe—and a list of inventive, mouthwatering agave spirit-based cocktails to go with it—but it’s also a showcase for Chef Curiel’s culinary talents. Evoking the vibrant creativity of Mexico City’s restaurant scene, the succinct menu is sprinkled with international flavors.

Chef Johnny Curiel started off in his family’s restaurant in Guadalajara, and after years of high-end culinary experience, he revisits dishes and flavors from his upbringing with creativity and finely honed technique delivering results that are both satisfying and delicious. Resist the temptation to fixate on any one item, as the menu is littered with treasures: perfectly crisped pork belly carnitas make for a brilliant taco on a sourdough flour tortilla.

The multicourse contemporary tasting menu rotates quarterly. This kitchen offers far from typical dishes. Seared quail breast with a confit leg is spot on, especially when sided by creamed kale made with sunflower seeds and a quail reduction. The hits keep coming through to dessert, where a warm, fluted buckwheat tart with a custard filling is bested with a cocoa nib crumble and a quenelle of subtle-yet-spectacular cinnamon and celeriac ice cream.

At this singular enclave, Chef Barclay Dodge and his team are executing seasonally inspired cooking that focuses on foraging, fermenting and local farms. From hand-picked spruce tips to butter from locally sourced cooperative dairy cows, this is a concept that pays attention to details—even ingredients from farther afield, like lobster from New England, gets a hit of local flavor from being grilled over juniper wood.

Chef Michael Diaz de Leon runs the show here, where the team takes a serious approach to locality and seasonality, not only in the produce but also the grains, which they mill or nixtamalize in-house. The mastery of the hearth as the primary cooking implement makes this operation special, and the menu, which is Mexican at its core, has a clear narrative, and is perhaps best displayed in lamb prepared two ways—as a street-style taco and ground lamb leg kushiyaki.

The cooking is Italian, but in a hyper-specific way: it's the food of the northeast Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. You'll find pasta and seafood on the prix fixe and tasting menus, but Slavic and Alpine elements also appear. Focused and distinct, the menu might showcase a lesser known part of Italy, but the ingredients are clearly Coloradan. Save room for dessert, like the beautifully arranged goat cheese semifreddo.