Harvest Week is a special week in Denver when chefs and eaters gather for an amazing collaboration of some of the city’s best restaurants. It’s sort of a grand picnic – gourmet style.
Monday last week, our Harvest Week chefs also happened to team up with another group of the city’s favorites – the Denver Broncos – for a gourmet tailgate. The food was inventive and just as incredible as the Bronco’s offense.
If you’re unfamiliar with Harvest Week dinners, the first thing to note is that you bring your own tableware. Yup. Like a picnic, the food is provided, but plates and dishwashing are up to you.
This can either be annoying or totally awesome if you’re like me and have a strange pinterest-inspired lust for cute twine and picnicing.
Appetizers come out by the dozen and it’s hard not to fill yourself just on apps alone! Drinks from Telluride Brewery and Bonaquisti Wine also fill in the Growhaus greenhouse.
Some of my favorite appetizers included smoked ribs with a peach porchini glaze from The Barolo Grill and Biker Jim’s amazing coffee and cocoa rubbed poted pork cheeks with wild mushroom purée and shallot chutney on toast.
But of course who could forget the amazing wings that Punch Bowl Social brought out to woo my spicy-loving soul.
As we watched the broncos play on the big screen, our dinners came out family style and were simply fantastic. Chicken Liver and Country Pate Sliders looked almost as gorgeous as they tasted but my real favorite of the evening was The Barolo Grill’s “Super Caprese Salad” that featured heirloom tomatoes and burrata with what could have only been some sort of molecular balsamic if not actual caviar.
Dinner also featured rattlesnake and pheasant cassoulet, jalapeno cheddar fritters, and colorado lamb ribs to keep the tailgate going. There was definitely an orange theme running through many of the dishes.
After a meal like this, you can’t really move… unless someone puts a slice of Biker Jim’s Cheesecake in front of you. Then you let your stomach take one for the team and induuuuulge.
And with that, the Broncos solidified another amazing victory on the field and our chefs solidified their victory in the kitchen.
Do you have any favorite tailgating snacks? Picnicing tips? Let me know in the comments!