This was our choice of restaurant for the final night in Denver. Earlier we had visited “Potager” and “Root Down”. They had not disappointed us. And therefore, we had high hopes for Rioja as well. It is located in the stylish streets of Larimer Square. The string of lights hung on top of this street, the vibrant flowers making your path on the sidewalk makes it a perfect spot for romantic dinner!
Ambience
The restaurant has outdoor sitting as well, a nice place to enjoy the beauty of street as you enjoy their food. With 300 days of sunshine, this is possible pretty much throughout the year. Of course they also have main dining area inside with a open kitchen view. They say and I totally agree, they have a simple decor so that their food shines!
Food Review
Rioja is a American (new) restaurant but its menu is inspired from Mediterranean ingredients and they use local and seasonal produces. They have a full bar and offer a wide range of Spanish wines and cocktails. Yes, the name Rioja is inspired from the Spanish wine region “Rioja”.
For the dinner menu, they had a good selection of appetizers, pasta and entrees.
We had Caprese Gnocchi as our starter course. Caprese is usually a salad of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese. As the name suggests the dish had a salad of baby tomatoes and greens with almond-basil puree and mozzarella cheese gnocchi. It also had crispy shallots topped with burrata which was creamy element of the dish. The gnocchi was soft and it would just melt in the mouth. The freshness from basil puree and salad would completely reset your palate for the next mouthful of cheesy gnocchi and burrata. It was so delicious that it was over in minutes.
For our entree, we had Pan Seared Grouper and Spice Rubbed Lamb Loin.
The fish was cooked perfectly with a very crispy top that was clearly visible. But it was soft and moist from inside. It was accompanied with grilled Japanese eggplants and fried shishitos (a kind of sweet pepper). The charred leek aioli and pine nut butter brought all of the items together. The figs were the fresh element that added the light sweetness to the dish. It was a good dish.
The lamb even though was good in taste, the presentation let it down. It had some great flavors of garlic roasted yogurt and strawberry mint compote. But I felt it was too dry overall. It all tasted good individually but did not work together. The falafel was delicious with the yogurt, but the hero of dish was left to pair with farro couscous that did not work. It lacked a sauce or jus that would have bound all things together.
For desserts we had Duet De Crémeux. Crémeux means creamy in french. This dish had one creamy dark chocolate cheesecake pudding and a white chocolate pistachio dense pudding. Hence the duet. It looked like two beautifully painted eggs! Within the, not so thin coating of chocolate were the dense and soft crémeux. It was not overwhelmingly sweet or heavy, even though it looked like so. The cognac anglaise, drizzled around the dessert tasted great with the creamy pudding. It was a good finish to a very nice dinner in the beautiful city of Denver.
