What are the best restaurants in Denver?
Denver's most decorated restaurant is The Wolf's Tailor in Sunnyside, Colorado's first and only two-Michelin-star restaurant. Six Denver restaurants hold one star — Alma Fonda Fina, Beckon, Brutø, Kizaki, Margot and Mezcaleria Alma. Eight Denver restaurants carry a Bib Gourmand for exceptional value, including Ash'Kara, Hop Alley, MAKfam and Tavernetta. The full list is below, searchable.
Most "best restaurants in Denver" lists are somebody's opinion dressed up as a ranking. This one is not a ranking at all.
It is the Michelin Guide Colorado, reorganised so you can actually use it — searchable by name, filterable by award level, neighborhood and cuisine, with the street address for every entry. We did not decide who is on it. Inspectors did.
Where we do have opinions — on how to get a table, on which neighborhoods are worth the drive, on what to order that is actually from here — those are clearly ours and clearly labelled.
How to read the list
What The Awards
Actually Mean
Michelin arrived in Colorado in 2023. Four levels of recognition, and they do not mean what most people assume.
Worth a detour
Excellent cooking, worth going out of your way for. Colorado has exactly one, and it is in Denver.
High quality cooking
Worth a stop. A star is awarded for what is on the plate — not the tablecloths, the view or the price.
Great food, fair price
Michelin's value designation — a good three-course meal at a reasonable price. Often the most useful list in any city.
Above average
Inspected and endorsed, but not at star or Bib level. Still a strong bet, and often easier to book.
A Michelin Green Star is separate and recognises sustainability — ethical sourcing, waste reduction, working with sustainable producers. Two Denver restaurants hold one.
The most useful thing to understand: a Bib Gourmand is not a consolation prize. It is a different category entirely, and for most people planning a normal Friday night rather than a milestone dinner, it is the more relevant list.
The directory
Every Michelin-Recognized
Restaurant in Denver
Search by name, neighborhood or cuisine. Filter by award level. Everything stays on the page — nothing loads in, and nothing is hidden behind a paywall.
Denver Restaurant Directory
All 31 restaurants-
Two Michelin Stars
The Wolf's Tailor
Tasting menuSunnyside
4058 Tejon St., Denver, CO
Colorado's first and only two-star restaurant. Holds a Michelin Green Star for the third consecutive year.
Tasting menu
Green Star -
One Michelin Star
Alma Fonda Fina
MexicanLoHi
2556 15th St., Denver, CO
Chef Johnny Curiel. Modern Mexican with a chef's counter.
Mexican -
One Michelin Star
Beckon
Tasting menuRiNo
2843 Larimer St., Denver, CO
U-shaped chef's counter. Vegetarian and pescatarian menus planned in advance.
Tasting menu -
One Michelin Star
Brutø
Tasting menuLoDo
1801 Blake St., Denver, CO
Everything centred on a wood-burning hearth. Also holds a Michelin Green Star.
Tasting menu
Green Star -
One Michelin Star
Kizaki
JapanesePlatt Park
1551 S. Pearl St., Denver, CO
Edomae-style sushi counter from chef Toshi Kizaki. New star in 2025.
Japanese -
One Michelin Star
Margot
Tasting menuPlatt Park
1551 S. Pearl St., Denver, CO
Opened June 2025, starred within months. Bar and dining room take à la carte.
Tasting menu -
One Michelin Star
Mezcaleria Alma
MexicanLoHi
2550 15th St., Denver, CO
Chef Johnny Curiel's second starred restaurant, next door to Alma Fonda Fina.
Mexican -
Bib Gourmand
Ash'Kara
IsraeliLoHi
2005 W. 33rd Ave., Denver, CO
Contemporary Israeli cooking, vegetable-forward, with a gluten-free pita option.
Israeli -
Bib Gourmand
Glo Noodle House
RamenWest Highland
4450 W. 38th Ave., Denver, CO
Three-time Bib Gourmand.
Ramen -
Bib Gourmand
Hop Alley
ChineseRiNo
3500 Larimer St., Denver, CO
Bar director Dustin Lawlor won Michelin's 2025 Exceptional Cocktails Award for Colorado.
Chinese -
Bib Gourmand
La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal
MexicanBallpark
2233 Larimer St., Denver, CO
Mexican -
Bib Gourmand
MAKfam
ChineseBaker
39 W. First Ave., Denver, CO
Chinese -
Bib Gourmand
Mister Oso
Latin AmericanLoHi
3163 Larimer St., Denver, CO
Second location at 103 S. Ogden St., Speer.
Latin American -
Bib Gourmand
Tavernetta
ItalianUnion Station
1889 16th St., Denver, CO
Italian -
Bib Gourmand
The Ginger Pig
ChineseSunnyside
4262 Lowell Blvd., Denver, CO
Chinese -
Recommended
A5 Steakhouse
SteakhouseLoDo
1600 15th St., Denver, CO
Steakhouse -
Recommended
Alteño
MexicanCherry Creek
249 Clayton St., Denver, CO
New to the guide in 2025.
Mexican -
Recommended
Barolo Grill
ItalianCherry Creek
3030 E. Sixth Ave., Denver, CO
Italian -
Recommended
Brasserie Brixton
FrenchCole
3701 Williams St., Denver, CO
French -
Recommended
Dio Mio
ItalianRiNo
3264 Larimer St., Denver, CO
Italian -
Recommended
Guard and Grace
SteakhouseDowntown
1801 California St., Denver, CO
Steakhouse -
Recommended
Hey Kiddo
ContemporaryBerkeley
4337 Tennyson St., Denver, CO
Contemporary -
Recommended
Kawa Ni
JapaneseCole
1900 W. 32nd Ave., Denver, CO
Japanese -
Recommended
Marco's Coal Fired
PizzaBallpark
2129 Larimer St., Denver, CO
Pizza -
Recommended
Mercantile
ContemporaryUnion Station
1701 Wynkoop St., Denver, CO
Contemporary -
Recommended
Restaurant Olivia
ItalianWashington Park
290 S. Downing St., Denver, CO
Heather Morrison won Michelin's 2025 Outstanding Service Award for Colorado.
Italian -
Recommended
Safta
IsraeliRiNo
3330 Brighton Blvd., Denver, CO
Israeli -
Recommended
Smok
BarbecueRiNo
3330 Brighton Blvd., Denver, CO
Barbecue -
Recommended
Temaki Den
JapaneseRiNo
3350 Brighton Blvd., Denver, CO
Japanese -
Recommended
Ukiyo
JapaneseLarimer Square
1317 14th St., Denver, CO
New to the guide in 2025.
Japanese -
Recommended
Wildflower
ContemporaryLoHi
3638 Navajo St., Denver, CO
Aiden Tibbets named Michelin's 2025 Young Chef of the Year for Colorado.
Contemporary
No restaurants match that. Try clearing a filter.
Source: MICHELIN Guide Colorado, 2025 selection (announced September 15, 2025), as published by MICHELIN and compiled by 5280. Addresses and neighborhoods as listed at the time of the award. The 2026 Colorado selection is expected in September and will expand to include Colorado Springs — we will update this page when it lands. Restaurants close and move; confirm before you travel.
The story
How Denver Quietly
Caught Up
For decades the national dining conversation ran through New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Then inspectors showed up in Colorado, and the answer changed.
The Michelin Guide came to Colorado in 2023. That first year was cautious — a handful of stars, nine Bib Gourmands, and a lot of people asking whether Denver really belonged in the conversation.
By the 2025 selection the answer was settled. Colorado had its first two-star restaurant, three newly starred restaurants in Denver alone, ten Bib Gourmands across Denver and Boulder, and 50 restaurants recognised statewide.
The two-star
The Wolf's Tailor sits on Tejon Street in Sunnyside and does an eclectic multicourse tasting menu built around Colorado ingredients. It moved from one star to two in 2025 and simultaneously held its Green Star for sustainability — the third consecutive year it has done so.
Chef Kelly Whitaker has described grain as the restaurant's luxury item, which tells you most of what you need to know about the place. It is not a foie gras and caviar operation. It is a restaurant that treats a heritage wheat variety the way another kitchen would treat truffle.
Whitaker's Id Est group also runs Brutø in LoDo, which holds its own star and its own Green Star, cooking almost everything over a central wood-burning hearth.
The Mexican breakthrough
The most significant thing in the 2025 Colorado guide might be that chef Johnny Curiel holds two Michelin stars on the same block.
Alma Fonda Fina on 15th Street in LoHi earned a star for modern Mexican cooking — blue-and-yellow striped corn tortillas, ceviche and aguachile, traditional dishes rebuilt with real technique. Then Mezcaleria Alma, immediately next door, earned its own star in 2025 for a small-plates menu backed by one of the most serious mezcal programmes in the country.
Two starred restaurants, one chef, adjacent addresses. That does not happen often anywhere.
Platt Park's unlikely double
The other 2025 story is a single building on South Pearl Street that now contains two starred restaurants.
Kizaki is an intimate Edomae-style sushi counter from chef Toshi Kizaki, who has been a defining figure in Denver sushi for decades and, in his seventies, earned a first Michelin star. Margot, in the same building, opened in June 2025 and was starred within months — chef Justin Fulton had been running pop-ups for three years before getting his own room.
Platt Park is a residential neighbourhood south of downtown. It is not where anyone would have predicted this.
The Bib Gourmands are the real list
If you take one thing from this page, take this: the Bib Gourmand list is where most people should actually eat.
Ash'Kara doing contemporary Israeli cooking in LoHi. Hop Alley doing modern Chinese in RiNo, where bar director Dustin Lawlor also took Michelin's Exceptional Cocktails Award for Colorado. Glo Noodle House, a three-time Bib Gourmand for ramen in West Highland. MAKfam in Baker. La Diabla doing pozole and mezcal in Ballpark. Tavernetta by Union Station.
These are places you can get into on a Thursday. They are also, by Michelin's own criteria, serving genuinely great food. The gap between a Bib Gourmand dinner and a starred dinner is much smaller than the gap in price.
A perfectly made taco or a rustic loaf of bread is now enough to attract Michelin inspectors. That change is the reason Denver is on the map.
What is coming
The 2026 Colorado selection is expected in September, and Michelin is expanding coverage into Colorado Springs for the first time. Denver's own list will almost certainly shift — new stars, new Bibs, and probably a few departures.
We update this directory when the guide does.
Sources: MICHELIN Guide Colorado 2025 selection; 5280 magazine's complete Colorado Michelin list (September 2025); Colorado Public Radio reporting on the 2026 guide expansion. Quotes and award language attributed to MICHELIN and the restaurants' own chefs as published.
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Practical
How To Actually Get
A Table
How far in advance should you book a Denver restaurant?
For a starred restaurant with a chef's counter — The Wolf's Tailor, Beckon, Brutø, Kizaki, Margot — book as soon as the window opens, typically 30 days out, and set a calendar reminder for the release time. For Bib Gourmand restaurants, a week ahead is usually enough, and walk-in bar seats are often available. For everything else in Denver, a few days.
Denver is not New York. You do not need a fixer. But the top of the list has genuinely tightened over the last three years, and the people who get in are the ones who understand how the systems work.
The counter restaurants are a different animal
Several of Denver's starred restaurants are chef's counters with a fixed number of seats and a single seating. Beckon has a U-shaped counter. Kizaki and Margot both run counters. Brutø seats guests around a hearth.
That means the entire night's capacity might be sixteen people. Reservations do not trickle out — the whole month drops at once and is gone in minutes. Find the release schedule on the restaurant's own site, set an alarm, and be logged in before it opens.
Book the bar
Margot has a bar and dining room at the front of the space serving cocktails and à la carte dishes for people who cannot commit to the full tasting menu. That is not a lesser experience — it is the same kitchen. A meaningful number of Denver's best rooms have a bar or lounge that takes walk-ins, and almost nobody thinks to ask.
Eat early or eat late
A 5:15 or a 9:00 booking is dramatically easier than 7:30 at every restaurant on this list. If your priority is the food rather than the hour, the whole calendar opens up.
Tuesday and Wednesday
Denver's dining crowd is heavily weekend-weighted. Midweek at a starred restaurant is frequently bookable inside a week. The kitchen is often better on a Tuesday than a Saturday, because nobody is in the weeds.
Watch the cancellations
Most reservation platforms have a notify function. Turn it on for the date you want rather than checking manually. Cancellations at counter restaurants get taken within minutes, and the notification is how you get there first.
Call. Actually call.
A surprising number of Denver restaurants hold seats back from online platforms. Picking up the phone at 3pm on a weekday, when the host stand is quiet, still works better than any app. It works especially well if you are flexible about the time.
One last thing, and it is not a tactic: if you book a counter seat and cannot make it, cancel it. A no-show at a sixteen-seat restaurant is a real financial hit to a small business, and Denver's restaurant scene is small enough that it matters.
Keep going
Beyond The Guide
The Michelin list is a starting point, not the whole city. Denver has roughly 273 municipalities' worth of Colorado around it and a food culture that predates any inspector's visit.
- Denver restaurants by neighborhood — RiNo, LoHi, LoDo, Cherry Creek, Platt Park, Baker, Berkeley, Union Station and Ballpark, with what each one is actually good at.
- The best brunch in Denver — the meal this city takes more seriously than almost any other, and the one where reservations matter most.
- What to eat in Denver — green chile, the classics, and the dishes that are actually from here rather than imported.
And if you are building a trip around the food rather than the other way round, our sister guide at Colorado What's Up covers everything outside the city — when to come, what is open, and which scenic byway to drive on the way home.
Common questions
Denver Dining, Answered
What are the best restaurants in Denver?
Denver's most decorated restaurant is The Wolf's Tailor in Sunnyside, Colorado's first and only two-Michelin-star restaurant. Six Denver restaurants hold one star — Alma Fonda Fina, Beckon, Brutø, Kizaki, Margot and Mezcaleria Alma. Eight Denver restaurants carry a Bib Gourmand for value, including Ash'Kara, Hop Alley, MAKfam, Glo Noodle House and Tavernetta.
Does Denver have Michelin star restaurants?
Yes. The Michelin Guide came to Colorado in 2023 and the 2025 selection recognised 50 restaurants statewide. Denver holds Colorado's only two-star restaurant, The Wolf's Tailor, along with six one-star restaurants, eight Bib Gourmands and around sixteen recommended restaurants. Two Denver restaurants — Brutø and The Wolf's Tailor — also hold Michelin Green Stars for sustainability.
What is a Bib Gourmand and is it worth it?
A Bib Gourmand is Michelin's designation for good quality food at a good value — a solid three-course meal at a reasonable price. It is not a lesser version of a star, it is a different category. For most people planning a normal Friday night rather than a milestone dinner, the Bib Gourmand list is the more useful one, and those restaurants are far easier to book.
How far in advance should you book a Denver restaurant?
For a starred restaurant with a chef's counter — The Wolf's Tailor, Beckon, Brutø, Kizaki, Margot — book as soon as the reservation window opens, typically 30 days out, and set a reminder for the release time. Several of these seat fewer than twenty people a night. For Bib Gourmand restaurants a week ahead is usually enough, and bar seats are often available to walk-ins.
What neighborhood in Denver is best for restaurants?
RiNo has the highest concentration of Michelin-recognised restaurants in the city, including Hop Alley, Beckon, Dio Mio, Safta, Smok and Temaki Den. LoHi is close behind with Alma Fonda Fina, Mezcaleria Alma, Ash'Kara, Mister Oso and Wildflower. For a single night with the most options within walking distance, those two are the answer.
What is the best Mexican restaurant in Denver?
By Michelin's assessment, Alma Fonda Fina and Mezcaleria Alma in LoHi — both hold one Michelin star and both are run by chef Johnny Curiel, next door to each other on 15th Street. La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal in Ballpark and Alteño in Cherry Creek are also recognised, at Bib Gourmand and recommended level respectively.
Is Denver a good food city?
Increasingly, yes. Michelin began covering Colorado in 2023 and by the 2025 selection Denver had earned the state's first two-star restaurant, three newly starred restaurants in a single year, and eight Bib Gourmands. Chef Johnny Curiel holds two Michelin stars on adjacent addresses in LoHi, and a single building in Platt Park now contains two starred restaurants.
When does the next Michelin Guide Colorado come out?
The 2026 Colorado selection is expected in September 2026, and Michelin has confirmed it will expand coverage to include Colorado Springs for the first time. Denver's list will likely change — new stars, new Bib Gourmands and some departures. This directory is updated when the guide is.
Do you accept payment to be listed in this directory?
No. Every restaurant in the directory appears because the Michelin Guide recognised it, not because anyone paid. We do not rank restaurants ourselves and we do not sell placement in that list. Advertising on this site is clearly labelled as sponsored and appears outside the directory.
What should I eat in Denver that I cannot get elsewhere?
Colorado green chile is the regional dish that actually matters here — pork-based, thinner than the New Mexico style, and poured over almost anything. Beyond that, Colorado lamb and Palisade peaches in late summer show up on menus across the city, and several Michelin-recognised kitchens build their menus specifically around Colorado farms and ranches.
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