Wheat Ridge, a suburb that’s quiet, residential and laid back, doesn’t have the culinary chutzpah of neighboring Berkeley, but the west side Hamlet’s dining climate is surprisingly diverse, its cannon of cuisines a sign that the suburb favors a melting pot of flavors. Whether you’re prowling for pierogies or feijoada, breakfast burritos swathed in green chile or deep-fried fish cakes, it’s likely that you’ll discover a new gem. And if you just want a burger and a Colorado craft beer, you’ll find that, too.
Mighty Joe’s Kitchen
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Old-school Italian meets Latin-American cuisine at Mighty Joe’s Kitchen {10160 West 50th Avenue, 303.425.4200}, a family-owned breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch restaurant that buzzes with caffeine-fueled regulars feasting on French toast, Italian omelet wraps, and bulging breakfast burritos smothered with a bracing green chile strewed with shredded pork. It’s not a hipster haunt, and nor is it trendy, but a remarkably affable staff, quarterbacked by a charitable owner who sources a litany of products from local purveyors, including Little Man Ice Cream, ensures that your face, name, and favorite dish from the menu won’t be forgotten the next time you visit. The Yucatan pulled pork sandwich, served on a ciabatta roll and layered with roasted jalapeños and garlic, glazed carrots, and melted Monterey Jack cheese, is especially mandatory.
Pierogies Factory
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At Pierogies Factory {3895 Wadsworth Boulevard, 303.425.7421}, the love child of Cezary Grosfeld, you’re going to be eating a lot of Polish dumplings, some stuffed with feta and spinach, others enveloping sauerkraut and mushrooms or potatoes and cheese. They’re full-flavored marvels even without the toppings (think green chile, tomato sauce, roasted garlic, mushroom-and-cheese sauce or caramelized onions and sour cream), and while it’s all too easy to stuff yourself into oblivion, you should definitely consider the soulful beef goulash or the pork schnitzel, too. If you want the whole kit and caboodle—and have a bottomless gut—the Polish platter, a splay of pierogies, kielbasa, beef goulash, cabbage rolls, cucumber salad and sauerkraut salad, is a meal for the ages.
Little Brazil
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Photo: Lori Midson
Little Brazil {10081 West 26th Avenue, 303.427.2270}, in an old-school strip mall that’s been around for decades, prepares a lot of things well, but none more so than its rustically composed feijoada, a smoldering, salty, ink-stained assemblage of black beans, sausage, bacon, dried beef, pork loin, and fistfuls of garlic, served in a crock and sidekicked with customary enhancements: orange wedges, bitter greens glistening with olive oil, white rice, and a mound of toasted yucca flour. The savory empandas—filled with things like hearts of palm, ham, ground beef and chicken—are pretty terrific, too. This is also one of the few places where you can drink a Xingu, a Brazilian black beer while you shop for all sorts of Brazilian foodstuffs stacked on the market shelves.
Real Thai
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Photo: Lori Midson
There are plenty of other Thai restaurants serving panang curry, papaya salad flush with fresh chiles, and drunken noodles punctuated with broccoli, carrots, and egg. And this is not the only Thai joint that prepares curry with roasted duck or finds a way to sneak cilantro and lime into just about every dish. But Real Thai {4980 Kipling Street, 720.638.6174} is one of the few places that serves a real-deal citrus-spiked larb and deep-fried fish cakes swathed in red curry, and when it’s a frantic afternoon and you find yourself wanting to seek solitude from the rat race, it’s easy to find yourself slipping into serenity in the peaceful dining room with its unmistakable Zen vibe.
Large Marge’s Philly Cheesesteaks
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I went to junior high school at what’s now Everitt Middle School. Lunch was sacked, mostly because the ‘hood was a restaurant wasteland. I can only imagine the euphoric rapture that ensued when students discovered that Large Marge’s Philly Cheesesteaks {3890 Kipling Street, 303.463.4549} had opened just adjacent to the school’s gate, dispensing exemplary cheesesteaks and “Poo” sauce, the joint’s name for it house made cayenne-pepper hot sauce. Can you imagine how much fun the kids have with that? The first time I ate here, I giggled, too. My son, then a middle-schooler, found the whole “Poo” sauce thing uproariously funny. But once we got down to the business of eating our Philly cheesesteaks, we stopped laughing. These are seriously amazing specimens, the squishy Amoroso rolls—straight outta Philadelphia—slapped with griddled shavings of rib-eye, red and green sweet and hot peppers, oil-glistened onions, and American, provolone or Cheez Whiz that melts into the meat.
Dolce Sicilia Italian Bakery
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Photo: Lori Midson
Terrific Sicilian-style pizza is the specialty of Dolce Sicilia Italian Bakery {3210 Wadsworth Avenue, 303.233-3755}, a little slice of fragrant heaven from owner, bread baker, and Sicilian chef Franco Spatola, who also oversees Spatola, an Italian wine bar and restaurant in Highland. More than two-dozen pastries and cookies (the rainbow cookies are exceptional), along with marvelous loaves of fresh-baked bread, line the trays and baskets, while calzones, lasagna, sandwiches, and bready, crisp-edged sheets of pizza, cut into squares, judiciously topped with everything from feta and artichokes to kalamata olives and marinated tomatoes and served at room temperature, round out the dreamy menu.
Colorado Plus Brew Pub
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Photo: Colorado Plus
Owner Eugene Khang, who opened Colorado Plus Brew Pub {6995 West 38th Avenue; 720. 353.4853} in 2013 after a long stretch in the liquor-store business, knows a thing or 10 about craft beer, and he opened his Wheat Ridge watering hole with one goal: to bring an all-Colorado craft beer establishment with noteworthy food to the ‘burbs. Housed in what was the legendary Valente’s Italian Restaurant, the relaxed joint pours 56 beers on tap, including several that are brewed on-site, and while beer is the primary draw, the kitchen serves one of the better burgers in town, not to mention addictive housemade potato chips and fried pickles.
West 29th
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Photo: Lori Midson
There’s nothing pretentious about Wheat Ridge, which is part of the suburb’s appeal. Over-the-top trendy hot spots are few and far between, as are fine-dining restaurants that require a liberal commitment from your expense account. West 29th {5560 West 29th Avenue, 303.233.3377} is the kind of restaurant that deftly bridges the gap between cosmopolitan and casual: Canoodling couples share bowls of mussels at the two-tops illuminated by the amber glow of a flickering hearth, groups congregate on the two patios for crepes and bottomless mimosas during weekend brunch and barflies converse over cocktails and craft beer in the lounge. Also worth knowing: The beer scroll is a pretty fantastic ode to Belgium, Holland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
By Lori Midson
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