Aspen/Snpwmass dining ideas?

[Erica McDonnell]

Looking for interesting/excellent restaurants in the Aspen/Snpwmass area. Would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you.

[ClaireWalter]

Narrow it down. Type of cuisine? Budget (high, higher, highest)? Staying in Aspen or Snowmass?

[Erica McDonnell]

Staying in Snowmass and primarily interested in places there. Open to anything (nope, Husband won't eat sushi) that gets good reviews. Thanks!

[ClaireWalter]

We ate at Il Poggio between Christmas and New Year's. I thought the mussels were fantastic and the salad subpar. Go to http://www.culinary-colorado.com/dini... and scroll down to the restaurant, under P, to read more. I haven't been to Sage in the Snowmass Club in eons, but it used to be good. Ashcroft at Snowmass and the Pine Creek Cookhouse at the end of Maroon Creek Road are experiences as much as a dinners (or lunches). Both do a lot with game, Rocky Mountain trout, feet, etc. Krabloonik also runs Snowmass' dogsled kennel; the cookhouse is reached by skis, snowshoes or horsedran sleigh. Both are long-running traditions, tho' the cookhouse is fairly new, replacing the original that burned down.

[GlennJr]

I'm in Aspen now for a ski trip. We ate at Ruth's Chris, a higher end chain steak house, very tasty, not cheap. Also a Mexican place called Cantina. $15-$20 per person? I thought the chips tasted kind of flat, but everything else was fine. The others in our group liked it. Also a seafood place called Pacifica. The fish were all very tasty. The preparations were somewhat "fancy", my salmon had spinach, some sort of tomato sauce, and some other things I couldn't identify. But very tasty.

Each of these were in downtown Aspen. That is a 5-10 minute drive from Snowmass. You might want to look into the bus system to get into downtown Aspen as parking was kind of hard to find. But tons of restaurants once you get there.

[blythe]

for late night snack, downtown aspen Crepe cart. good muchies for late night hunger ( and i think it's there all the time.) It was on the Rachel Ray $40 a day show. She loved Krabloonik, but a very foodie girlfriend ate there over New Years and it didn't meet he expectations.

[cimui]

If all of your dining companions are skiiers, Lynn Britt Cabin on Snowmass Mountain (off the Village Express lift) is a good choice for lunch and, at some times of the year, dinner. [The downside for non-skiers is that you can only get to the restaurant by skiing down a blue square from the "Midway Unloading Station" of the Village Express lift, I believe.]

Lunch, when we went, was prix fixe ($33 / person IIRC) and came with an appetizer -- a choice of elk chili, green salad or soup of the day -- and an entree. I had the green salad, which was almost a meal in and of itself, with chevre, sweet grape tomatoes and a good mix of high quality fresh vegetables. My entree was poached striped bass entree, served with lightly braised baby carrots, potatoes and cippolini onions. The fish was reasonably fresh and competently cooked. Onions were undercooked and vegetables undersalted for my tastes, but the dish was good overall and generously portioned. My bite of a friend's pork tenderloin entree was excellent: well spiced, tender and moist. It came with Brussels sprouts and some sort of chopped vegetable medly with bacon and a sour/sweet dressing. (I wasn't crazy about the dressing, but my friend loved it.) Other members of the party had a nice looking and reportedly very soft gnocchi and a "pot pie" -- basically stew topped with a square of puff pastry.

It's hard to draw any broad conclusions from one meal, but I suspect that your chances of finding decent to excellent food at Lynn Britt are fair. You'd just have to earn it. :)

[ddavis]

Drive 30 miles down valley to Carbondale and eat at Six89. Well worth the drive, IMO.

[cimui]

Thanks for the rec. Just looked at the restaurant's website and it looks/sounds very interesting. Hopefully next time! (A member of my group has a young child, so that affected our mobility a bit and we mostly ate in / cooked.)

[rlm]

Six89 is good, as is the chef's Phat Thai. We usually make it a point to stop off in Edwards at Dish or Avondale in Avon now so we haven't made the Carbondale run in a while. Lunch at the Little Nell at the bar in the off-season was cheaper and more low-key than our previous dinner there (which is just how we roll), and it was one of our favorite meals this year. I had an "adult" grilled cheese paired with a fresh tortilla soup. I was already getting tired of the sliders trend by then, but their crab cake sliders paired with a simple salad of field greens as a shared appetizer was irresistible. Matsuhisa is pricey, but it's hard to beat their tasting menu topped off with mochi ice cream. I'm sad at hearing that D19 has closed, as their savory zeppole was one of the best things going. Chef Dena apparently has a brand new restaurant in Aspen called Ellina, so let's hope the zeppole makes a triumphant return.

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Six 89 Restaurant
689 Main Street, Carbondale, CO 81623

Little Nell
675 E Durant Ave, Aspen, CO

Avondale
Avon, CO, Avon, CO

Phat Thai
343 Main St, Carbondale, CO 81623

Dish! Restaurant
56 Edwards Village Blvd Unit 230, Edwards, CO 81632

[rlm]

Read in Aspen Magazine that Chef Miguel Diaz has taken over Ellina in Aspen. Dena Marino has moved to Miami and is helming DeVito.