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Photo: Lori Midson
Last week, the crew behind Crafted Concepts—chefs Jennifer Jasinski, Adam Branz, and Jorel Pierce, general manager Jessica Cann, operations director Matthew Brooks and Crafted Concepts co-founder Beth Gruitch—gave a handful of Denver diners an early taste of Ultreia, the fifth restaurant from the dynamic culinary team behind Rioja, Euclid Hall, Stoic & Genuine, and Bistro Vendôme. The latter, whose kitchen is overseen by Branz, was the site of a two-day pop-up showcasing the majority of dishes that Ultreia, a Spanish-Portuguese restaurant, plans to unleash once it opens in Union Station {1701 Wynkoop Street} in late November.
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Photo: Lori Midson
And if the menu preview was any indication of what we can expect when Ultreia opens in the former Fresh eXchange space, then November can’t come soon enough. Jasinski, who holds a James Beard Best Chef Southwest title, kicked off the tasting by lugging out a leg of four-year-old Cinco Jotas jamón Ibérico de bellota—a cured, time-honored ham made from acorn-fed, black-footed Iberian pigs.
The prized ham—silky, highly marbled, incredibly tender, and renowned for its sweet and nutty flavor (for that, you can thank the acorns)—is ridiculously expensive (more than $1,000 for the leg that Jasinski shared), and there’s nowhere else in Denver where you can get it, says Jasinski, who traveled to Barcelona, Spain and visited the Jamón Experience, a museum dedicated to nothing but jamón Ibérico, to experience the country’s biggest food obsession. At Ultreia, Jasinski is featuring a half ounce of that ham, alongside a half ounce of the two-year-aged Fermin jamón Serrano (a Spanish dry-cured ham from the mountain town of La Albercia), for $17. You’ll probably want more.
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Photo: Lori Midson
Truth be told, you’ll likely want more of everything. The menu is punctuated with pinxtos (Spanish snacks typically served on cocktail sticks), tapas, petiscos (Portuguese snacks), raciones (large plates), and postres (desserts), and just about everything we sampled was a hit. Cauliflower, which is still a maligned vegetable (once upon a time, so, too, were the now-lauded Brussels sprouts), is anything but scorned in the Ensalada Brassica, a dish that elevates cauliflower to new heights, the roasted gold-tinged florets offset with dried pomegranate seeds, ropes of gailon, (a leafy vegetables similar to Chinese kale) and swipes of cauliflower purée and piquillo vinaigrette.
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Photo: Lori Midson
We also loved the Trucha Curada, a splay of cured trout paired with housemade potato chips and a salad of oranges and Mediterranean olives, as well as the setas, a dish of Cedar Plank mushrooms and black garlic foam. But the star of the show is the Pollo Piri Piri, a roasted Petaluma Rocky Jr. chicken blasted with potent spices that deliver a phenomenally spicy thrill. Pull off the desert-red skin, still delicate but full of crackle and crunch, and you’re rewarded with beautifully tender flesh that yields enough juice to drink. It’s the kind of chicken that makes you morph into one of Pavlov’s dogs. The cooling cucumbers, specked with dill, don’t do much to soothe the burn, but they’re delicious in their own right.
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Photo: Lori Midson
The beverage scroll, a tribute to sherry and sherry cocktails, classic Spanish gin tonics and Spanish and Portuguese wines, which were chosen by Jasinski and Gruitch following a visit with Raúl Pérez, one of Spain’s finest winemakers, is inked with temptations, including the caramel-hued sherry cobbler made with Bodegas Grant Amontillado La Garrocha. You can also order two-ounce pours of port and Madeira, all of which are delivered in gorgeous glassware.
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Photo: Lori Midson
When Ultreia opens, it will seat 54 inside and an additional 50 on the patio. The bi-level space, which includes a mezzanine, will offer lunch and dinner daily. By the way, “Ultreia” (pronounced uhl-trey-uh) means the encouragement to keep going, reaching beyond and heading onward—an apt definition for the Crafted Concepts restaurant group that continues to blaze culinary trails.
By Lori Midson
The post A Preview of the Forthcoming Ultreia (including the Thousand-dollar Ham) appeared first on DiningOut Denver/Boulder.