Owls, Jays, Samurai and Cowboys 🍽
Recent dining and drinking in Denver — part one. Populus Hotel, Little Owl Coffee, Stellar Jay, Ace Eat Serve and Urban Cowboy
While in Denver last weekend to pick up my 2025 Top of the Rockies Excellence in Journalism awards from the Colorado Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, we decided to make a weekend out of it. We found lodging and aimed for some meals off the long list of places I’d eventually like to get to.
For part one, I’m covering the what’s attached to the trendy new boutique hotel we chose plus a couple spots within walking distance we hit. In part two, I’ll focus on a trio of newly appointed Michelin-recognized spots plus another place that quickly won our affection. Without further ado, let’s do this:
Populus Hotel
The aspen-tree-inspired Populus Hotel just opened in October, 2024 and was created to be the world’s first carbon-positive hotel. It made Time’s World’s Greatest Places of 2025 list, championed for its beautiful, biophilic design. More than 70,000 trees were planted in Gunnison County to help offset the hotel’s impact and a “one night, one tree” campaign continues to plant new trees for each night a guest stays.
Beyond the striking architecture at every turn, cool eco-touches abound, such as the coin-shaped wooden room keys (that function just as the plastic RFID cards do) presented to us in a paper card filled with wildflower seeds that I’ve already planted at home. In the above middle photo, the draping curtain-looking element above the bar is made from Reishi mushrooms. Wood shingled walls are beetle-kill pine reclaim. Biodegradable carpeting is made with recycled materials, and on and on.
We really enjoyed our stay, grateful to find a last-minute Colorado Rockies home-opener-weekend special that significantly slashed prices. (Keep an eye on specials and there’s a local’s rate listed on their site too.) That made the $25/night amenity fee more palatable, partly described to us as featuring water-bottle-fill stations on every floor. (Access to good water shouldn’t be a perk or privilege but a right … I digress.) We made the best of it by enjoying the gym daily (dig the Peloton access) and taking advantage of the two free admissions to the nearby and worthwhile Clyfford Still Museum next to the Denver Art Museum (valued at $30 total).
Yeah the concrete-exposed, minimalist rooms are small to the point of being almost cramped, with little space to place bags, but we’re fine with that eco sacrifice. Plus the bed is ridiculous fluffy and comfy and like sleeping in a cloud (I presume). Part of why we chose to stay at the Populus is it had been on my to-do list since I first started receiving press releases about the project a couple years ago. I’m a big greenie so it naturally caught my eye. I got ghosted on my pre-opening media requests to attend previews (I’m not bitter about it still), but I vowed I would get there someday to see it for myself, especially the rooftop lounge. Bummer that was closed during our stay due to a spring snow that kept it off limits (a staffer mentioned not wanting to have snow tracked inside).
Anyway, to the dining and drinking on site:
Little Owl Coffee
Denver craft roastery Little Owl has four locations that include a small kiosk inside the Populus’ lobby. A staffer tells us the company’s about a decade old. They recommend the miso-maple latte on the current seasonal menu (of just a few drinks beyond the traditional espresso drinks on the main menu). We get it with oat milk and it’s fantastic, with sweet umami notes accented by walnut bitters and smoked bourbon sugar. (Bougie!) Also notable, our barista creates a cute bear face on the foam, using the bottom of the thermometer used to steam the milk to draw atop a careful pour.
As an off-menu option, they offer to make us their personal favorite drink, a custom honey-cinnamon latte. It’s balanced and nicely not too sweet. We return the next day for a “cat-puccino” — as we were lured by the bear to ask what other latte art they do. Again, cute-cute-cute, but more importantly a simple, enjoyable sipper.
Stellar Jay
We opt to skip the lobby-level Pasque restaurant that’s open for all meals of the day in favor of heading up to the 13th floor Stellar Jay. The rooftop eater bills itself as open-flame inspired and geared toward assorted game and classic meats with seasonal produced accents, some local. They also note “edgy, adventurous flavors” which we can’t say we really experience. Oh, and they add a 1 percent “zero foodprint donation” to check totals as part of a listed initiative to “eliminate food waste, minimize carbon, repurpose organic materials, and exemplify our dedication to environmental stewardship.” Their website notes industrial composting, water conservation monitoring and soil health tracking (as part of what that fee goes to it appears).
Behind the menus, as explained in this critical Westword writeup, are Frasca Hospitality Group alums Ian Wortham (chef) and Curtis Landrum (director of F&B), who worked together at Tavernetta. Frasca and Tavernetta hold Michelin awards, so all the name-dropping sounds promising, but like the Westword, we too are not impressed with our fist visit — outside of relishing the hell out of our $21 Mohawkan Old-Fashioned, a mix of mezcal, reposado, Mexican amaro, agave and bitters. It holds a beautiful balance of smoky and earthiness, herbal bitterness and a touch of sweetness, drinking wonderfully throughout no matter what level of dilution, thanks to an oversized ice cube doing its job. The like-priced Jaybird Negroni adds pineapple rum to the 1:1:1 gin, Campari, sweet vermouth recipe, but fails to elevate the classic drink remarkably for us, especially at the price.
The food falls completely flat, though, with so many missteps in our starters that they lose faith with us to give us the confidence to invest in the mains (starting at a $31 trout and capping out at a $145 bison tomahawk steak). Texture is perhaps the biggest offender followed by unimpressive flavors. Harissa carrots are trending on fine-dining menus these days and you are better off venturing for the ones locally at Evergreen Restaurant than bothering with Stellar Jay’s rendition. Most chefs desire to have ingredients speak for themselves — let a carrot be a carrot — highlighting their inherent flavor. (A brilliant dish not long ago on District Elleven’s menu featured carrots three ways from Chef Dustin Archuleta, and each delighted and surprised.) But here the natural essence is buried under excessive wood smoke and charring, rendering the root veggie mute. The garnishing pepitas and cannellini bean purée are more interesting with the harissa spiciness, yet not dish-saving.
While those carrots were cooked overly soft, I must reserve the word “mushy” for the gnocchi, which enter baby food territory, feeling undercooked. The description of wood-fired sofrito and black garlic leaves us scratching our heads as we detect nothing of a deep foundational sauce, instead tasting more of a store-bought stuffing mix of Thanksgiving-esque flavors; somewhere between a French onion soup and a green bean casserole, with browned panko crumble on top as the final “huh?” for us. We took a couple bites and left the rest, feeling bad for challenging the eatery’s zero food-waste goals.
We can’t help but glean another grocery store reference with the back flavor, like a generic hearty beef soup can, of the stringy, pulled, braised beef on our $22 beef toast, composed with Flying B Bar beef out of Strasburg, Colorado (in the plains just east of Denver). It holds a pot roast element, with a likable middle flavor of clove, akin to birria, but once that fades the finish feels somehow more like diner fare on an open-faced sandwich; with salty feta and caramelized cipollini onions adding some sharpness and creaminess. At least the sourdough is high quality.
All told, Stellar Jay simply does not live up to the live-fire trend’s potential as we can see it from a snapshot, and we don’t feel we should have to commit to a pricier steak to investigate further. Positives: The servers (stylishly clad in brown corduroy jackets) and food runners are knowledgable and overall hospitality is warm. The curvaceous, warm-lit, gray-toned dining room, with an open kitchen and overhead wood panels that evoke entwined, obtuse propeller blades, features stunning views over the lit-up Denver City and County Building clock tower. All the aspen-inspired, elongated-eye-shaped portal windows (especially in a rear private dining area I tour through) leave me feeling like I’m inside a hive or cocoon (earthly or alien), which feels cozy and intimate in a unique way.
So my takeaway for you is go for the stunning scenery and views plus a drink at the bar, for sure, but consider whether you want to burn some dollars in search of better food than we found. I’m left thinking about this @nytcooking link a friend forwarded me this week, which asks “Is the Restaurant Good? Or Does It Just Look Good?” The continued slides read: “A decade ago, restaurants were largely defined by the ambition of the food and credentials of the chef. Now, they’re all about atmosphere and appearance… the food element is kind of an after thought.”
I later read my friend Laura at New Denizen’s October, 2024 writeup and felt gratified by some similar impressions of it all, perhaps best summed up as “good intentions, but mixed results.” I’m compelled to quote the fine food writing: “I also hesitate to call it a live-fire restaurant, as that feels more like a description of the cooking method rather than a defining perspective. While the overall hotel concept is sharp and distinct, Stellar Jay’s own identity remains amorphous, leaving diners to politely shrug when asked what the food is all about.”
*From the Populus Hotel we walked to the following two spots, near-ish by:
Ace Eat Serve
Ace opened in 2012 and is a sister outfit to Steuben’s and formerly Vesta, which closed in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. It’s a cool space that creates a mashup of a ping pong hall, modern Asian eatery and hip bar. We stop in for dessert and are pretty blown away by the prowess of Executive Pastry Chef Michael Kurowski (who also outfits Steuben’s with sweets).
We order the a Thai tea-infused carrot cake that’s layered with a fluffy maple-coconut mousse and plated with streusel crumble, candied walnuts and an orange orb of Thai tea ice cream. Our entertaining bartender Elliott convinces us that we need the Hot n’ Cold in our lives as well; it’s an ice cream made with sweetened condensed milk that’s plated with an almond cookie and drizzled with spicy chile oil flecked with sesame seeds and other spices (similar to a togarashi methinks).
Both are outstanding. Everything we all love about Thai tea when we’re slurping noodles or powering through curry makes it an equal delight in a sweet setting. The foamy coconut icing carries the island flavors further and traditional carrot cake spicing folds gently in for an effective fusion. And indeed spicy chile oil on ice cream proves an unusual delight, confirming the sweet-heat culinary truism wherein we know the two pair perfectly when executed properly, as this is. There’s nothing weird or shock value about it. The dish totally works and leaves me feeling like I need to make up for lost time, not having chile oil on ice cream enough in my life to-date. I vow to remedy that in the future, even if it be at home.
Public House Bar & Restaurant at Urban Cowboy
Urban Cowboy is a small boutique hotel inside a beautiful historic mansion flanked by high rise buildings and modern development — such that if feels somehow in the wrong timeline, more striking because it’s out of place somehow.
Anyway, Lauren and her friends greatly enjoyed drinks on prior visits to the Public House, located in a separate building at Urban Cowboy’s rear. So she wanted to take me to check it out. Inside, the atmosphere feels like a mashup of a simple Irish pub (minus all the Guinness signs and firefighter paraphernalia) and Western whiskey bar (down to a bench seat constructed partly with longhorns). Under the low, tin-tile ceiling, it was a little overly loud on a Friday night (with retro disco music that didn’t fit the visual vibe), but then again I’m getting older and grumpier when I have to blow out my voice to have a conversation.
We order a couple of after dinner drinks: the Clarified Milk Punch and Pat’s Wonderland (each $14). The first mixes two types of apple brandy with orange, lemon, baking spices and browned butter. The latter fuses cognac, creme de menthe, cacao, pistachio (liqueur?) and cream. Both are hyper-sweet, even with dessert drinks in mind, to the point where we only drink about half and are compelled to leave the rest for the sink drain. The creme de menthe totally overpowers the Wonderland (which is why I left a question mark above on the pistachio element which we don’t taste) and tastes like something better poured over ice cream. And I don’t manage to write very coherent notes to self about what I don’t like about the milk punch other than it tastes out of season (even on a cold spring night), butterscotch-y somehow and just too damn sweet.
Lauren swears the her first visits were great and that something’s just off this night, and Denver media friends confirm it’s usually a decent cocktail spot when I ask them. In a way, it validates how it’s not just Colorado Springs which has displayed consistency issues over the years — Denver’s not immune. That’s not a good thing for either, of course, but it helps chip away at the little sibling complex the smaller city can have towards the larger, at least culinarily and culturally speaking. Bad nights happen; we’re all human. Cowboys fall off their horses sometimes.