Colorado's first Michelin selection is announced on 14 September
Denver, Boulder and the mountain resort towns are all in contention as Michelin prepares to publish its Colorado picks later this month.
Michelin publishes its Colorado selection on 14 September, and the state's restaurant industry has spent the run-up doing the thing every city does before a guide lands: speculating.
The three areas in contention
Denver
The obvious centre of gravity. Denver's dining scene has grown substantially over the past decade, driven by population growth and an influx of chefs from more saturated markets. It has the density of ambitious kitchens a guide needs to justify coverage.
Boulder
Smaller, wealthier and disproportionately influential. Boulder has a long-standing reputation for ingredient-driven cooking and a customer base willing to pay for it.
The mountain towns
Aspen, Vail and the surrounding resorts operate a seasonal fine-dining economy funded by visitors rather than residents. The cooking can be excellent; the difficulty is consistency across a season that effectively pauses twice a year.
Guides reward restaurants that are the same in April as in December. A seasonal resort town is structurally disadvantaged by that criterion, whatever the kitchen is capable of at its peak.
What a guide does to a city
The effects are well documented and not uniformly positive.
- Reservations tighten immediately at recognised restaurants, often for months.
- Prices rise, both at the listed restaurants and, in time, around them.
- Staffing costs increase as recognised kitchens compete for the same limited pool of experienced cooks.
- Unlisted restaurants can suffer, particularly good ones that fall outside the guide's frame of reference.
There is also a well-observed tendency for a new guide to pull a city's cooking towards what the guide rewards. That is a real cost, and it is the one restaurateurs mention privately most often.
What to watch on the day
The Bib Gourmand list will say more about Colorado's food than the star list. Bibs recognise good cooking at accessible prices, which is where a state with a strong casual dining culture is most likely to be well represented.
For anyone planning a trip
The window to book a soon-to-be-recognised restaurant closes on 14 September. If there is somewhere in Denver or Boulder you have been meaning to try, this week is the cheapest and easiest it will be for some time.