This episode is really special — a deep eating, drinking, and food culture tour of Colorado, a state that has been quietly (and then not so quietly) building one of the most exciting culinary scenes in America. From Denver’s Michelin-starred restaurant boom to the peach orchards and wine country of the Grand Valley, we went to find out why Colorado is a serious food destination — and came back convinced.

Denver Johnny Curiel — Michelin-starred Alma Fondafina, Milpero, Alteño

Denver Laura Young — New Denizen food crawl: Five Points, RiNo, coffee, Cuban pastry, soul food

Western Colorado Matthew Chasseur — Pêche in Palisade, Palisade peaches, Grand Valley wine country

On the Road Matt Rodbard — Grand Junction, Palisade, Aspen, Denver: Vietnamese, pizza, tacos, and more

Denver — Modern Mexican

Johnny Curiel Is Building Something That Will Outlast Him

The story that explains Johnny Curiel starts in Guadalajara, where every important conversation happened at a table. It continues in Breckenridge, Colorado, where his father — also a chef — moved the family when Curiel was twelve. It detours through a period of independence at sixteen, a formative trip back to Mexico at eighteen, years working the abuela kitchens and fondas and banquet circuits of Jalisco. And it arrives, finally, in Denver, where Curiel is now the chef behind Alma Fondafina (Michelin-starred), Milpero, Alteño, and Mescalería Alma — the most acclaimed portfolio of modern Mexican restaurants in the Rockies.

What makes Curiel’s restaurants different from what came before isn’t just the food — it’s the storytelling. When Alma Fondafina opened, every dish came with a memory attached. The frijoles puercos were his mother’s. The birria de borrego came from somewhere specific. “From the moment you sat down, it was a story,” Curiel says. “A lot of times you get food, but there’s no connection. I think people felt that.”

“I couldn’t afford culinary school, and I couldn’t leave Colorado. So I’m hoping to build that here — so the people that cannot leave get to experience it, and at the same time learn from it.”

— Johnny Curiel

His newest restaurant, Milpero, is the fullest expression of that vision yet — an 18-course tasting menu built entirely around corn. Not eighteen tacos, not eighteen sopes. Eighteen ways of thinking about what corn is and what it can become: tetelas, memelas, molotes, fermented drinks made from maíz, and a signature welcome cocktail of tejuino (a traditional Jalisco corn fermentation) paired with the Bozal Maíz mezcal that Curiel co-developed using Colorado-grown corn.

The Massa Corn Project

In partnership with the Massa Seed Foundation and chef Kelly Whittaker, Curiel seeded twenty acres of heirloom corn in Colorado — three varietals that have been adapted to the state since the 1990s: Chihuahua Blue, Oaxacan Green, and Concha White. When the Concha White hung too low for a combine, the team organized a hand-harvest party instead. “You look around and you’re surrounded by cool people, like-minded people,” Curiel says. “That was great for our team to see.”

The corn goes into Milpero. It goes into a Bozal mezcal. It goes into conversations about whether next year’s planting could be a hundred acres instead of twenty, with six restaurant groups instead of two. “It’s not a win for Fondafino Hospitality,” Curiel says. “It’s a win for Colorado.”

Johnny Curiel’s Denver Recommendations

Alma Fondafina Denver — Michelin Star	Curiel’s flagship — modern Mexican fine dining rooted in memory and story. Six moles on the menu at any given time. The restaurant that put Denver on the Mexican fine-dining map.
Milpero Denver — Tasting Menu	18-course tasting menu built around corn — Curiel’s love letter to maíz. Colorado-grown heirloom corn varietals, a Mexican fermentation lab, and a tejuino welcome drink. The restaurant as a culinary university.
Alteño Denver — Hotel Clayton	Curiel’s fourth Denver restaurant. Don’t miss: hamachi aguachile, jalapeño cornbread with smoked honey and black truffle, slow-roasted sweet potato with salsa macha and fennel whipped cheese, gringa al pastor on a sourdough tortilla.
Molino Chido Aurora — Stanley Marketplace	Chef Michael Diaz-León’s masa-focused restaurant, with surprising India-influenced elements from his time staging abroad. Curiel’s personal recommendation.
Riot Barbecue Denver	Mexican barbecue from chef Manny Barela, who grew up in Monterrey. Tortillas made with smoked tallow from the barbecue. His own cornbread. Everything connected to a single story.
Kawani / US Thai Denver	Kawani: Japanese izakaya-style, with tamaki rolls and kimchi udon carbonara. US Thai (Sloan’s Lake): uncompromising traditional Thai. Two spots Curiel returns to again and again.

Denver — Neighborhood Guide

Laura Young’s Denver: A Morning in Five Points and RiNo

Laura Young has lived in Denver for ten years. Before that, she ran an influential music blog in New York and spent time in the early 2000s scene on the Lower East Side. She moved to Denver and did what good food writers do: she got her arms around a scene while it was still small enough to be gotten around. Now she publishes the New Denizen, one of the essential reads on Colorado food and drink. On this episode, she takes us on a crawl through Five Points and RiNo — a neighborhood she compares to Williamsburg circa 2005 — that covers specialty coffee, Japanese-Australian brunch, Cuban pastry, and forty-year-old soul food. None of it is what people expect from Denver. All of it is exactly what Denver is.

Stop	What to Know	Order
Queen City Collective Coffee RiNo — 6 locations	Exceptional specialty coffee roaster sourcing from Colombia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and beyond. Laura’s go-to for the quality and sourcing rigor. Part of the first wave of businesses that helped define the neighborhood.	Manos de Piedra (Costa Rica) pour-over. Or ask what’s on the wall — the single-origin selection is the point.
Stowaway Denver — All-Day Café	Chef Amy Cohen’s all-day café, inspired by her time in Australia and her Japanese heritage. Colorful, wholesome, and genuinely considered. “It feels like a hug,” Laura says. Laura’s top Denver breakfast recommendation, full stop.	Asagohan (Japanese-style rice bowl with salmon and pickled veg). Weekend yuzu-strawberry donut. Black rice pudding with mango and toasted coconut for the in-between-sweet-and-savory crowd.
Café Trace Denver — Cuban Bakery	Young owner Michael Solis started at farmers markets and made the jump to brick-and-mortar. Yves Klein blue trim, tight design, and some of the only classic Cuban pastelitos in Denver. Seasonal rotating flavors alongside the classics.	Guava and cheese (the bestseller, always on). Carne pastelito. If it’s seasonal, the naranja — tart, light, beautifully laminated.
Welton Street Café Five Points — Soul Food & Caribbean	Four decades of family ownership in one of Denver’s most historic black neighborhoods. The family traces its roots to the U.S. Virgin Islands, which explains the Caribbean alongside the soul food. Always packed. The kind of place that makes a neighborhood feel like a neighborhood.	Fried chicken. Catfish. Mac and cheese. Greens. There is no wrong answer here.

“I’ve lived here for ten years, and the scene has only just begun to pick up steam. It’s been really exciting to see how all the changes have happened.”

— Laura Young, New Denizen

Western Colorado — Palisade

Pêche in Palisade: World-Class Dining in Peach Country

Matthew Chasseur did six years at Alinea. He worked in London. He staged in New Hampshire and traveled broadly enough to cook across multiple continents’ worth of cuisines. Then he and his wife Ashley started driving through Palisade on their way back from a ranch job in Quebec, stopping at Blaine’s farm stand for peaches and tomatoes, and realized: the produce is right here. Pêche, their restaurant in Palisade, opened six years ago and just received a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality. The nearest major city is Grand Junction, 15 miles west.

The menu at Pêche doesn’t have a fixed identity in the way most restaurant menus do. There’s a classic French bistro steak frites. There’s Thai fried chicken that Chasseur has been perfecting for four years. There’s chicken parmesan — named chicken parmesan, called chicken parmesan, but done the Pêche way. Mu Peng: pork skewers, coconut curry. “We just try to be true to the art of cooking,” he says. “It’s not linear food.” The unifying logic isn’t a cuisine — it’s a standard of technique and a passion for learning, applied to whatever the season and the valley have to offer.

“There was one night where an older gentleman sat in overalls with a plaid shirt, and his wife had clearly gotten dressed up for dinner. When they walked out past the window, I saw that old man grab her by the hands. We did our job.”

— Matthew Chasseur, Pêche

The Produce of the Grand Valley

In early June, Chasseur’s routine is a bottle of water and a bag of cherries from Blaine’s farm stand, eaten in the truck on the way to the restaurant. “You gorge on cherries, and then you gorge on peaches,” he says. “If you’re trying to stay clean and tight, it’s not going to work — you’re going to bite into a Palisade peach and it’s going to run down both sides.” The freestone peaches come late July and August. The Olathe sweet corn is legendary. Cherry tomatoes from Ross and Jess Diner, a farm within walking distance of Pêche, arrive in a city market bag on thirty minutes’ notice.

Tiki Bird: Coming to Grand Junction

Chasseur’s second restaurant, Tiki Bird, is opening in Grand Junction and is built from six years of Pêche’s most-requested dishes — the ones that kept coming off the menu and coming back via guest demand. The concept: chicken, prepared across every cuisine the Pêche kitchen has explored. Thai fried chicken. Chicken tikka. Vietnamese-inspired gai. Jamaican jerk. Southern fried. Poulet frites. Each at the table the same night, if you want. Rum-inspired tiki cocktails alongside. “Let’s open a chicken restaurant,” Chasseur told his wife Ashley, “and take people globally.”

Where to Eat and Drink in Western Colorado

Pêche Palisade	Globally-minded fine dining in peach country. James Beard–nominated for Outstanding Hospitality. Open kitchen, farm-sourced, technically rigorous. The reason to make the trip west.
Mesa Near Paonia — Farm Dinner	Open six to seven months a year, 45 minutes from Palisade toward Paonia. You park and walk onto the farm; outdoor tables, five or six people cooking, everything from the land. Chasseur and Ashley’s most surprising discovery in the valley.
Moody’s Grand Junction	Low-key, delicious steak and red wine. Chasseur’s personal go-to for a night off.
Blaine’s Farm Stand Palisade	The first stop Chasseur makes every morning. Cherries in June, peaches from late July. Pull over. Buy what’s there. Eat it in the car.
Grand Valley Wineries Palisade Wine Country	Colorado’s main wine-growing region, clustered around Palisade. A half-day of tasting between Blaine’s and Pêche makes for a very good itinerary. Pair with mountain biking, hiking, or fly fishing — Chasseur’s best friend was chasing rainbows on the East Portal while we recorded this episode.

Across Colorado — Road Notes

Matt Rodbard on the Road: Grand Junction to Aspen to Denver

The route runs west to east: Grand Junction, Palisade, Aspen, Denver. It takes you through canyon vistas, high desert, mountain switchbacks, and eventually the city. Along the way, the eating is relentlessly good — and almost nothing on the list is a steakhouse.

Where	What Rodbard Ate
Los Hilbertos Taco Shop Grand Junction — 24 hours	Late-night arrival fuel. Crispy rolled tacos, cabeza, fish tacos, carne asada fries wrapped into a burrito. Colorado-style Tex-Mex with green chili everywhere. “There were signs on the wall that implied things might get a little rough. I loved it.”
Fidel’s Cocina y Bar Palisade — All-Day Café	Rainbow goddess salad with flamed corn and chili-roasted pistachios. Pulled king mushroom taco with caramelized onions and citrus jalapeño slaw. Queso birria. Ate outside in the sunshine. The right move for a Palisade lunch.
Paradise Bakery Aspen — 50 years old	50-year-old locally owned institution. 250,000–300,000 visitors a year. Banana chocolate chip and morning glory muffins. The kind of place where locals and visitors discover they want the same thing.
Sapsua Denver — East Colfax Esquire Best New 2024 · James Beard Semifinalist	Husband-wife team Ni and Anna Nguyen. Modern Vietnamese — but they’re clear it’s their version, not traditional. Chả cá Lã Vọng reimagined as turmeric-dill fish sticks with turmeric dill aioli. Bánh xèo as beef tartare with Thai chili kōji, raw egg yolk, peanuts, and a turmeric cracker. Soft scrambled egg with fish sauce and brown butter over rice. “I would be there a lot if I lived in Denver.”
El Taco de México Denver · James Beard America’s Classic 2020	Founded in 1985 by Maluisa Zanabria (Mexico City). Formica counter, order-and-wait, open late. The green chili smothered burrito is the thing — a wet burrito lacquered in green chili. Also: lengua, cabeza, and tripe tacos. A Denver institution with a James Beard America’s Classics designation to prove it.
Joy Hill Denver — Natural-Leavened Pizza	48-hour naturally fermented dough. Signature: the Mahalorado — fresh and shredded mozzarella, green chilies, pineapple compote, bacon. Rooftop patio with views of Red Rocks. “A lot of pizzerias don’t put in that kind of work with the dough, and it shows.”

Things Worth Knowing

On Eating Your Way Through Colorado

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Full Transcript

Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity. Filler and crosstalk removed; meaning and tone preserved throughout. Speakers: Matt Rodbard (host), Aliza Abarbanel (co-host), Johnny Curiel (Alma Fondafina / Milpero), Laura Young (New Denizen), Matthew Chasseur (Pêche).

Johnny Curiel — We’ve been fortunate that everybody that works in Colorado has been with an open door: “Hey, you need Hierbasanta? We’re gonna try to grow Hierbasanta. You need Epazote? We’re gonna try to grow Epazote.” We were fortunate enough last year that a farmer decided to give us a shot, and we seeded 20 acres of corn.

Matt Rodbard — Taste on the Road in Colorado, presented by Visit Colorado. Today’s episode is a deep eating, drinking, and food culture survey of Colorado — a state that has been quietly and then not so quietly building one of the most exciting culinary scenes in America. From Denver’s Michelin-starred restaurant boom to the peach orchards and wine country of the Grand Valley, we went to find out why Colorado is a serious food destination, and came back convinced.

First up, we sit down with Johnny Curiel — a Guadalajara-born, Denver-raised chef and 2025 James Beard Award finalist behind the Michelin-starred Alma Fondafina and the newly opened Milpero. Next, we hit Five Points and RiNo with Laura Young, Denver food writer and founder of the New Denizen. Laura takes us on an epic crawl of the spots defining the new Denver dining moment. We then head west to the Grand Valley for a conversation with Chef Matthew Chasseur of Pêche in Palisade. I also catch up with Aliza to share highlights from our wider Colorado eating adventures.

Matt — Johnny Curiel, welcome to This Is Taste. It’s so great to meet you.

Johnny Curiel — Thank you for the invite. Thank you for inviting me to be on this platform.

Matt — We’re excited to talk to you. You’re absolutely making moves in Denver and other places too. I want to ask about that story of you immersing yourself in Mexican cuisine at 18 — traveling around markets, this intensity that you see today in your restaurants. Tell me about that.

Curiel — Growing up in Guadalajara Jalisco, I remember the meals being at my parents’ table, my grandma’s table. Most conversations and most celebrations were always at the table. It was always surrounded by food, surrounded by people that you loved. And then coming to Colorado when I was 12 — we were nomads for a minute. My dad was a chef, so we were in Page, Arizona, Peyton, Arizona, Woodland Park, Denver, Colorado Springs. We ended up in Breckenridge. The food my dad cooked — he started cooking really great Mexican food in the United States, but he wanted to be more approachable, more Tex-Mex. I remember being like, this is great food, but it’s not what I remember of Mexico from what I grew up eating. So when I was 18 and couldn’t afford culinary school, my dad asked me to come back to Mexico. That was the moment. Go back, explore, work, learn. It was mercados, abuela’s kitchens, fondas. At one point I worked as a server for a banquet team that traveled to weddings all over Mexico. I fell in love with the food and with the people. Anywhere you went, you were welcomed. Let me show you what we do.

Matt — So when did you actually decide to be a chef?

Curiel — Probably at 16. I had to make a living, and it was the closest thing I knew to family — the gatherings, the food, Christmas, hosting people. Did I think I was going to be a chef? No. I probably thought I was going to cook, and I was going to be a great cook and not take shortcuts. And then it turned out I was good at it.

Matt — And you end up back in Denver.

Curiel — I found myself back in Denver in 2021. Got the opportunity right away to go and work as a sous chef at La Sandia at Park Meadows — owned by Richard Sandoval. I told the VP, Manny Flores: “Just give me a shot. I won’t let you down. I have the ethic. I might not have the knowledge, but I’ll do it.” One day we would do 600 covers. That’s when it clicked for me that it was no longer a job — it was a career.

Matt — You’ve become the definitive voice of modern Mexican cooking in Colorado. When you opened Alma Fondafina, there was something about what you did that was different. What was it?

Curiel — When we opened Alma Fondafina, it was our livelihood, everything my wife and I had. It was a story — not just food. From the moment you sat down and had frijoles puercos — that’s the dish my mom makes every time I go to Mexico — to the birria de borrego. A lot of times you get food, but there’s no connection. I think people felt that. Dana Rodriguez, José — all those people were doing great work, and I think they helped our guests open their eyes. And then social media helps. You see goat birria on TikTok and all of a sudden you find the urge to find goat birria. It was a whole movement.

Matt — Putting six moles on a menu — is that a technical challenge or a cultural argument?

Curiel — It’s both. A restaurant should be an experience that’s also learning. When you go to a restaurant, you should leave questioning what happened. Most people still believe there’s mole — they don’t know there are hundreds of different moles. And it’s also for the staff. Everyone who believed in us and came to work with us deserves to learn as much as we can teach them. So when they make a leap to open their own place, they understand that what they learned was important — they didn’t just learn one thing, they learned millions of things.

Matt — How do you think about using Colorado products?

Curiel — It’s a lot of communication and partnerships. Even our farmers — any grower — they’re always intrigued by different ingredients, different seeds. Someone said, “You need Hierbasanta? We’ll try to grow Hierbasanta.” Last year, a farmer gave us a shot and we seeded 20 acres of corn with the Massa Seed Foundation and chef Kelly Whittaker — Chihuahua Blue, Oaxacan Green, and Concha White, all adapted to Colorado since the ’90s. We all went to hand-harvest when the Concha White hung too low for the combine. Buckets and dumping, buckets and dumping. You look around and you’re surrounded by cool, like-minded people. That was awesome.

Matt — How does the corn make its way into your restaurants?

Curiel — The place you’ll see it most is Milpero — every corn element will come from those crops. We also partnered with Bozal mezcal, who made a vegan-style pechuga with our corn. So we have a Bozal Maíz mezcal coming out. And this year we’re already talking about going from 20 acres to 100, from two restaurant groups to six. It’s not a win for Fondafino Hospitality — it’s a win for Colorado. If we can support our backyard of Colorado and Mexico at the same time, we all win.

Matt — What are visitors missing when they think about the food of Colorado?

Curiel — So much diversity. You can go to Federal and Colfax and find incredible Mexican food — from hole in the wall to food trucks to taquerías to paleterías. Or go deep into the mountains and find great food. Bakeries everywhere. Reunion Bakery, Get Rights, Convivio coffee shop, Bakery Four. There’s a Cuban bakery that just opened that’s incredible. Great Chinese restaurants, great Vietnamese restaurants. Anything you want. And I think any restaurant you eat in Denver could be worthy of being in New York, worthy of being in Chicago, worthy of being in LA. We just need to look at it that way.

Matt — Tell me about Milpero — it’s day zero, your staff is coming in to train.

Curiel — Two years in the making. It’s my love letter to corn. Our diet in Mexico is corn-related — almost every day, every table has tortillas. But everywhere in Mexico has a different version of how they use corn: tetelas, memelas, molotes. We came up with an 18-course tasting menu where you see corn throughout — not in a heavy way. It’s not 18 tacos. But you’ll taste different elements of corn and the fine dining side of Mexico. We created a Mexican fermentation lab — pulques, tolagrio. And structurally, this is the university for Fondafino Hospitality. Opening team chefs from the other restaurants come in for six months, learn, then rotate back — so every restaurant improves.

I never got the opportunity to work at a three-Michelin-star restaurant because I couldn’t afford it and couldn’t leave Colorado. So I’m hoping to build that here — so the people that cannot leave get to experience it and learn from it. Life is about giving and teaching. I hope I can set a great path for the next generation, and they are even better than me.

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Laura Young — Rhino to me is sort of like Williamsburg, circa 2005.

Matt — This is Laura Young of the New Denizen, a Denver-based online magazine covering Colorado’s food and drink scene. She’s taking us around some of the city’s most exciting food neighborhoods. Tell us about where we are.

Laura Young — We’re in Five Points right now — a historic neighborhood that was historically a Black neighborhood through the 1950s. Since the 2000s, it’s gone through a lot of gentrification. There’s a lot of stuff going on in terms of new and old. It’s a neighborhood in transition, in terms of the food scene and the businesses here.

Matt — When you moved here, did you understand what you were getting into with the scene?

Young — The thing that appealed to me was opportunity — there was energy, and the scene was small enough that you could get a handle on it. For chefs and people who want to open businesses, there’s room to experiment with the type of food you want to do, and maybe you don’t have to put down too much capital.

Matt — We start at Queen City Collective Coffee. I visit with co-owner Scott Bennington, who offers me a pour-over — an exceptional geisha from Victor Bermudez in Colombia. After coffee, we head to Stowaway.

Matt — Thank you for that recommendation. Why was Stowaway the spot?

Young — It’s the place I always tell people to go for breakfast or brunch here in Denver. The vibe is so much fun, and the food is colorful and tasty but also wholesome. You can go savory with the karaage sandwich — indulgent, all the umami — or if you have a sweet tooth, the weekend donuts are amazing. But you can also go to the asagohan, which is more of a traditional Japanese breakfast. You’ve got your rice component, salmon, beautiful slightly pickled vegetables. At the end of the meal, it feels like you’ve gotten a hug.

Matt — We head to Café Trace. Young owner Michael Solis is doing these great pastelitos — Cuban pastries, a mix of savory and sweet. Really one of the only people doing this style of pastry in Denver. The naranja — so tart and light. The lamination on it. And the guava and cheese is what I want all the time.

Young — The carne and the guava and cheese are always on the menu — his top two bestsellers. Everything else rotates based on inspiration or what’s in season.

Matt — Our last stop: Welton Street Café. Tell me about it.

Young — This family has been running restaurants in Five Points for over 40 years. The family originally moved from the U.S. Virgin Islands — that’s where the Caribbean dishes on the menu come from. Being in this historically Black neighborhood, in a family that’s been here a long time, creating a space where you can get really great soul food — that was really important. They’re so well loved here.

Matt — Welton Street Café really delivered. Is Denver underrated?

Young — Probably. I mean, as you can see, we’ve got all these different types of restaurants and food places opening up, and that is only continuing to grow. I’ve lived here for 10 years, and the scene has only just begun to start to pick up steam. It’s been really exciting to see how all the changes have happened over these years.

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Matt — Clayton and I drove all around the state — west to east, Grand Junction to Denver. The most stunning part of Colorado. We landed late in Grand Junction and found a 24-hour taquería called Los Hilbertos Taco Shop. Crispy rolled tacos, cabeza and fish tacos, carne asada fries wrapped into a burrito. Colorado Tex-Mex style with green chilies everywhere. Signs on the wall that implied things might get a little rough from time to time. I loved it.

Then Fidel’s Cocina y Bar in Palisade for lunch — a rainbow goddess salad with flamed corn and chili-roasted pistachios, pulled king mushroom tacos, queso birria. A beautiful lunch outside in the sunshine. Then we made it to Aspen — Paradise Bakery, a 50-year-old establishment that gets 250–300,000 visitors a year. The banana chocolate chip and morning glory muffins. Just a local spot, truly supported by the community.

In Denver, dinner at Alteño — Johnny’s fourth restaurant, and really impressive. Hamachi aguachile with cucumber habanero broth. Jalapeño cornbread with smoked honey and black truffle. The best dish I had in all of Colorado was a slow-roasted sweet potato with salsa macha and fennel whipped cheese — Johnny thinks deeply about his dishes and this has become one of his signatures. We ordered all the tacos; the gringa al pastor arrived as an open-faced quesadilla on a sourdough tortilla with Oaxacan cheese. He does the corn tortillas with in-house nixtamalization and naturally fermented sourdough flour tortillas. Incredible meal.

Then Sapsua — a modern Vietnamese restaurant in East Colfax from husband-wife team Ni and Anna Nguyen. Esquire’s 50 Best New Restaurants in 2024, James Beard semifinalist. The chả cá reimagined as fish sticks with turmeric dill aioli and nuoc cham. A bánh xèo as beef tartare with Thai chili kōji, raw egg yolk, peanuts, and a turmeric cracker. Soft scrambled egg with fish sauce and brown butter over rice — my favorite dish there, and deceptively simple. I would be there a lot if I lived in Denver.

El Taco de México for breakfast — founded in 1985 by Maluisa Zanabria from Mexico City, honored as a James Beard America’s Classic in 2020. The green chili wet burrito is why people go. Lengua, cabeza, tripe tacos. A truly great morning. And Joy Hill for pizza — naturally leavened, 48-hour dough fermentation, rooftop patio with a view of Red Rocks. The Mahalorado pie: mozzarella, green chilies, pineapple compote, bacon. A lot of places don’t put in that kind of work with dough, and it shows here.

If I had to summarize what I found in Colorado: it goes back to the diversity of agriculture. You can tell that all of these places are using the land — the great beef, the corn for freshly made tortillas, the wheat for naturally fermented flour tortillas. There’s incredible produce and so much sunshine. And there’s a real diversity of people living in and around the state. Incredible Mexican cuisine, Mexican-American spins, Asian cuisine, pizza. Colorado gets a reputation for being meat and potatoes, and that’s so far from the truth. If you’re visiting for outdoor adventure or skiing, there’s always a great meal around the corner. It’s a really impressive state.

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Matt — Matt Chasseur, welcome to This Is Taste. It’s so cool to be here at your restaurant. Tell me — we’re here in Palisade, Colorado. When you started thinking about opening your own restaurant and thinking about Colorado produce, what was in your mind?

Matthew Chasseur — Ashley and I were working up at the High Loans Ranch in Quebec, driving into Grand Junction every day. We’d take Highway 50 through Palisade instead of the interstate and stop at Blaine’s farm stand — grab peaches, grab tomatoes for the ranch. This produce is right here, accessible. Very seasonal, but when it’s in, it’s awesome. We were getting to the point where it was like: what’s the next step? We’ve got kids, responsibilities shifting. So we started to think about settling down and still feeding the love for food and cooking.

Matt — You did six years at Alinea. Tell me about that time and what you were building as a chef.

Chasseur — I started in small-town New Hampshire, went to London, and then a close friend called me about this restaurant in Chicago. We’d heard whispers of Grant Achatz when we were in London — a Gourmet magazine review, most important restaurant in America. When I staged there, walking in — clean and tight, black shoes, black pants, white undershirt, clean-shaven — I was absolutely mesmerized. I had never seen the level of precision matched with discipline. Those are two different attributes. That drew me in.

Matt — How does a meal unfold at Pêche?

Chasseur — We do à la carte — appetizers, mains, desserts. The style of food has taken on its own identity. When we first opened, I thought it was going to be one-plate compositions. But then we started to really pick it apart — how can we break these things down and separate them out and challenge ourselves to keep it all delicious? That’s the root of our cuisine. It’s not a linear food. We try to be true to the art of cooking. Stay disciplined. A soufflé is a soufflé. If we’re going to do a classic eggs Benedict, we’re making the hollandaise from scratch.

The first couple of winters hit hard — what is our identity going to be? Are we going to stretch seasonal produce or dive into the repertoire of global cooking? We chose the latter. If nothing’s available and we have to bring stuff in, let’s bring in lemongrass, galangal, all these ingredients, and start to cook globally. That has defined our identity over the last six years. Right now the menu has French bistro steak frites. We can take you to Thailand. Take you to China. We have chicken parmesan right now — we just call it chicken parmesan — and then we get to do what Pêche does with it.

Matt — You received a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality. Tell me how you think about welcoming guests.

Chasseur — The perfect example: when we first opened, there was one night where there were two older guests — an older gentleman, you could tell his wife had gotten dressed up for dinner. He was in overalls with a plaid shirt. He sat at the table in the back. When they left, I could see them walk past the window — and I saw that old man grab her by the hands. We did our job.

Matt — Tell me about Tiki Bird.

Chasseur — Tiki Bird is opening in Grand Junction. The food comes from six years of Pêche’s most-requested dishes — the chicken dishes that kept coming off the menu and people kept asking for. Thai fried chicken. Chicken tikka. Gai. Jamaican jerk chicken. Southern fried. Poulet frites. We started asking: what if we opened a chicken restaurant and took people globally? You sit down tonight — you’re going to have Japanese, I’m going to have Vietnamese, she’s going to have Jamaican. Come back tomorrow and have the Southern. The tiki side is rum-inspired cocktails. It’s inviting, not a traditional tiki bar. The food has all been bench-tested at Pêche — we have 2,000 lines of recipes, weighed to the tenth of a gram.

Matt — Give me a sense of the produce of this valley.

Chasseur — If I could call you at the beginning of June: we’re going to stop at Blaine’s farm stand and each grab a bag of cherries. Bottle of water, bag of cherries, and I just eat them in my truck for the five minutes it takes to get to the restaurant — spit cup for the pits. They’re here for three weeks and you gorge on cherries, then you gorge on peaches. The clingstone peaches come mid-June; the freestones — late July, August — those are the ones. If you’re trying to stay clean and tight, it’s not going to work. You bite into a Palisade peach and it runs down both sides of your face. The Olathe sweet corn is awesome. And Ross and Jess Diner — a farm within a softball throw of Pêche — grows cherry tomatoes in summer. I call Ross half an hour before service: we need cherry tomatoes. They come down in a city market bag. That’s how it works here.