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Juan Padro and Katie O’Shea, the married duo behind Highland Tap & Burger, Bar Dough, Señor Bear, and Tap & Burger Sloan’s Lake, are quickly becoming the city’s most dynamic restaurant power couple. Padro and O’Shea, founders of the Culinary Creative Group, are on track to unveil several more restaurants in Denver, including Maine Shack, a lobster joint in the former Uber Eats space on Central Street; Ash’kara, a joint venture with chef Daniel Asher (of River and Woods in Boulder) and DiningOut Magazine publisher Josh Dinar that will open in the vacant Rosa Linda’s plot in LoHi; and Morin, a French “bistronomy” with Bar Dough chef and partner Max MacKissock. Named after MacKissock’s mother and inspired by MacKissock’s French heritage, Morin is scheduled to open in early autumn in the former Wazee Supper Club space at 1600 15th Street.
The Morin team, which is also tagged with beverage heavyweights Mary Allison Wright and Mclain Hedges, owners of the Proper Pour RiNo Yacht Club at the Source, have been showcasing dishes at a series of pop-ups in advance of the opening, many of which were unveiled during a recent dinner.
“Morin is super-dope French food, but it won’t be a classic French bistro,” says MacKissock, noting that while he’ll stamp the menu with odes to French ingredients and preparations, the overall emphasis will be a hybrid of contemporary French cooking and composed dishes offset by casual elements. “It’ll be fun, cool, and hip—a place where you can slow down and just enjoy yourself,” says MacKissock. The beverage roster, notes Hedges, involves an all-natural, terroir-focused wine program coupled with a trio of aperitifs, nine cocktails, and 75 wines by the bottle, the majority of which will lean French.
Here’s an early peek of some of the dishes that you can expect to eat when Morin opens.
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Vinegar-powdered, crispy squash croquant enveloping oyster mousse and crested on shells punctuated with seaweed.
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Leek panisse with compressed tomato seeds.
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Porcini mushrooms served three ways: grilled, conserva, and raw. The composed dish is accentuated with an egg, sorghum, sunflower, and brown butter.
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Coins of fresh lobster propped on a corn pain perdu smeared with mayonnaise and infused with smoke from Ventrèche, a fatty, fleshy French bacon from the part of the pork belly.
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Roasted, compressed, and marinated eggplant with tomato confit, basil oil, and a pool of buttermilk broth.
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This duck and foie gras terrine (a modern play on a bành mí) incorporates nuoc cham, Asian herbs, pickled crudite, and milk bread.
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MacKissock will devote a portion of his menu to various potato creations, including this complexly textured potato dish, a potato chip tuile dotted with caviar canopied over potato mousse and parsienne—rounded potato balls—and served in a verrine, which means “glass” in French.
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Salt-flecked boeuf entrecotte with kohlrabi noodles dotted with sweet allysium flowers matched with creamy avocado béarnaise.
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A beautifully composed dessert of brown butter mousse, compressed melon, lemon purée, palm sugar meringue, fresh sprigs of mint, and edible flowers.
Photos and Story by Lori Midson
The post A peek at the French-inspired dishes from the soon-to-open Morin appeared first on DiningOut Denver/Boulder.