Group dinner in Denver?

[sallyt]

Hi everyone --

I'll be at a conference in early April - near the Hyatt Regency Denver -- and would love restaurant recommendations...

I need places for Friday and Saturday night - Friday night we'd love a place where lots of us (30?) can have drinks & mingle, and then those of who want to (10?) can stay and have a good sit down meal? Private room maybe? Any kind of food is fine...

Saturday night I'd love a rec for some place for 5/6 of us - any food, something special but not too too expensive would be great.

Thanks -

[cagrischo]

Do you need restaurants that are walking distance? These are all in the downtown area but some are more walkable than others.

Osteria Marco (has private rooms)
Zengo (has private rooms)
Vesta Dipping Grill
Tamayo (has private rooms)
Jax
Wazee Supper Club (for very casual dinner - pizza, subs, etc)
Marco's Coal Fired Pizza

Check them out on CitySearch for more info, prices, etc.

[Heyteacher]

Jax and Zengo are two of my other faves downtown - Jax might be tougher for a group and Zengo has space but can be pretty loud. Osteria Marco is very good and has plenty of space for large parties - I went with a group of 12 in January and our table was great.

[LurkerDan]

The Corner Office would be a good place for the first night. Walking distance, a fun and funky bar/restaurant, they do have a room (or at least a somewhat separated area) at the back for a big group, food is good and reasonable.

As for your second night, there's plenty of places I see mentioned here all the time, but I'm not the best one to comment, as I'm more familiar with Boulder restaurants.

[tatamagouche]

Good call, LD.

As for the second night, some of the options listed on a recent thread might help.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/600588

[sallyt]

Thanks- a friend recommended Duo Denver - would that be good for a big group? It's hard to tell online...

Thanks again!

[ClaireWalter]

Do is in the Highland neighbhorhood (NW Denver) -- not convenient to downtown. You'll probably need a taxi or two to get 5 or 6 people there on Saturday -- less convenient than someplace downtown for a larger group because of transportation. Duo has a lively bar area (often a 30-ish crowd), visually separated from the dining area but sound travels between the two. Semi-open kitchen. Good food. Loft-look place w/ high ceilings, exposed brick walls, so not a quite atmosphere. But VERY good food and killer desserts (pastry chef Yasmin Lozada-Hissom is a semi-finalist for the 2009 James Beard Award for Oustanding Pastry Chef). See www.duodenver.com

[Heyteacher]

IMO, Duo doesn't match the hype. We've been once and will never return - food was good but the service was HORRIBLE....I've seen better in McDonald's. There are too many fabulous restaurants in Denver to go somewhere that does not even MEET my expectations.

I would recommend The 9th Door for dinner - great atmosphere and fabulous food. Enjoy!

[ClaireWalter]

Heyteacher - Surprised you had such a miserable experience at Duo. We were there during Denver Restaurant Week -- every table occupied and guests waiting at the bar for vacancies. The service was surprisingly good. At one point before our first course came out, the kitchen got backed up, and the servers were lined up waiting for their orders to come out. Once that bottleneck cleared, everything ran as smoothly as on a far quieter evening.

IMO, a single bad experience should not color an opinion forever. The Denver foodie world raves about Osteria Marco. When four of us went there, "our" reserved table was given away by a second hostess even as we were waiting to be seated. We were shunted off to a table in the bar instead of the dining room, and once we were seated, we had crappy service by an incompetent waiter. He got our orders confused -- and the food arrived, it wasn't all that great. We had theater tickets and didn't have the time to request a remedy. Still, I would not dismiss the place that so many others ooh and aah about based on one lousy experience.

As far McDonald's, I wouldn't know, because I onlyt stop there occasionally on the road to use their restroom.

[tatamagouche]

I dunno, the 9th Door's all right, but a party of 10 seems pretty big for that space. Also, personally, I don't like getting tapas with a big group of people. When you're talking between $5-12 for dishes that only a couple of people will get to sample any one of, it gets, I think, unduly expensive.

Duo I've heard mixed reviews of, myself. But what with butternut-burrata arancini (even if it bugs me that they call them "risotto fritters"—why pander to ignorance? Teach your customers a new word or two, it won't hurt them) & a corned beef-gruyere sandwich on the menus, I'll have to check it out sometime myself for sure.

[rlm]

ha ha. Tatamagouche, this reminds me of a German place the in-laws took us to, where spaetzle/Spätzle became "German noodles, " Kartoffelkloesse appeared as "potato dumplings," etc. I don't mind the inclusion of a translation/description, but why dumb things down and exclude the actual names?

Agree with Claire about the service thing. Speaking specifically about Duo, I have had both stellar and poor service there. As long as the food is good, service alone won't make me give up on a place unless they are blatantly rude or unsanitary (or it becomes clear after a few trips that bad service is the rule rather than the exception).