Colt & Gray

It’s not very often that I hear of a place on Food Network that’s near where I live.  It’s not that Denver/Boulder doesn’t have amazing, incredible restaurants…they do!  It’s just that a lot of the Food Network stars live in places like New York and all over California, so it only makes sense that the places they eat and review are around there too.

So you can imagine that when I saw Colt & Gray featured several times on Food Network for various reasons, I knew we would have to try it.  HAVE TO.

We ate there last night for our anniversary dinner, and I have to say that I was more than pleased with the food, atmosphere, service, and overall ambience.  It’s an amazing place!  We let them know what we were there celebrating, and first things first they brought out complimentary champagne.  Anyone who does that gets 100 points in my book!

They have fresh-baked baguettes and whipped salted butter, likely the most amazing combination on the face of the planet.  And yes, I mean that.  I love sugar and garlic and bacon and chocolate as much as the next person, but give me perfectly baked fresh bread and butter?  Holy goodness.  I probably ate enough butter last night to last me the rest of the year, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

While we waited for our first course, they brought out the amuse-bouche:  a bite-size roast beef sandwich with horseradish cream.  Perfection.  The meat was silky, tender, and flavorful.  The entire dish was seasoned perfectly, and my tastebuds were tantalized.  Mission accomplished.

For our first course Nate and I split the Sweet Potato Gnocchi.  It comes complete with browned butter, wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, and sage.  It was the most ridiculously tasty gnocchi I’ve ever had in my entire life.  They truly were perfect, soft pillows of dough, the sauce was a perfect compliment, and the sage (it was fried a little) was insane.  There’s not a thing I would have changed about this entire dish!

Afterward we had more bread and butter (shocker) and were brought a palate-cleansing sorbet.  Unfortunately I don’t remember what it was called, but it had a slightly bitter quality to it.  Even though I wouldn’t call it delicious, the texture was certainly perfect!

My pick for dinner was the brined and grilled pork chop, which was served with brussels sprouts, sweet potato gratin, and a mustard sauce.  The meat was grilled perfectly, and the brussels sprouts were incredibly flavorful, but I have to say the star of the show (for me) was the sweet potato gratin.  There was not a bite that I put in my mouth where I didn’t shut my eyes and say, “MMMMMMM” when I was eating that dish.  I could make an entire meal out of the gratin and the gnocchi.  The entire plate was amazing!

Nate ordered the Seared Arctic Char, which was served with roasted potatoes and a sorrel sauce.  It had a slightly Asian-infusion taste to it, and the bites I had were perfectly balanced in flavor and texture.  If I were going back again tonight I would probably order the char, but only if I could get some sweet potato gratin on the side.

It’s just how I roll!

And now, the reason we came:  dessert!  We saw a blurb about Colt & Gray’s Sticky Toffee Pudding on What’s the Best Thing You’ve Ever Eaten? one night, so going in we knew exactly what we were going to order.  And this bad boy did NOT disappoint!  The pudding itself was decadent, perfectly sweetened, and held up to the toffee well.  The toffee sauce?  Yeah…there really are no words.  But when you top it all off with bourbon ice cream?  It’s about as perfect as a dessert can get.  I would go back time and time again to eat this!

If you’re ever in the Denver area, you should make a stop at Colt & Gray.  The service was perfect the entire meal and the waitstaff was extremely knowledgeable.  The atmosphere is VERY Colorado…casual, rustic, and beautiful.  The food is some of the best I’ve had since we’ve been out here, and I will most certainly be going back for seconds!