The 2025 Restaurant and Chef Award semifinalists for the James Beard Awards were announced last week. Local nominees in various categories include Frasca Food and Wine (Outstanding Restaurant) and Hosea Rosenberg of Blackbelly (Best Chef: Mountain). Denver’s Alma Fonda Fina — sister restaurant to Boulder’s Cozobi Fonda Fina, is a semifinalist in the James Beard Best New Restaurant category.
Gunbarrel’s Whistling Boar Provisions is open at 6315 Lookout Road, offering scratch-made pastries, soups, salads and sandwiches on house-baked breads.
Saigon District One Vietnamese Restaurant is open at 599 Crossing Drive in Lafayette, former site of Mono Mono Korean Fried Chicken.
Nana’s Dim Sum & Dumplings on The Hill in Boulder (and in Denver) was included in Yelp’s Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the U.S. in 2024.
Culinary Calendar: Taste the Year of the Snake
Boulder’s Creature Comforts Cafe hosts a Feb. 1 Year of the Snake eight-course Chinese New Year tasting menu by Devin Keopraphay, chef at Longmont’s Rising Tiger. Tickets: creaturecomforts.cafe
Boulder Farmers Market icons Patrick and Mara Tcheunou of Bibamba Artisan Chocolate, will lead a tasting of their Cameroon-sourced chocolates Feb. 6 at Denver’s History Colorado Center. Attendees will also sip Bibamba’s hot chocolate and take chocolates home. Tickets: bit.ly/ChocolateHistoryBW.
Words to Chew On: Cook here now
“What we need are more cooks, not more cookbooks.”
— From The Tassajara Cookbook (Shambhala Books) by Edward Espe Brown
John Lehndorff has written Nibbles for the Boulder Weekly since 2015. Read his debut column here: archives.boulderweekly.com/cuisine/nibbles/how-the-sausage-was-made