Denver Magazine / Denver Magazine February 2010 / First Bite: Interstate Kitchen & Bar

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First Bite: Interstate Kitchen & Bar

Neighbor or nomad, this dressed-up diner offers a whiskey list to write home about.

It feels like nine of ten restaurants that have recently opened make a point of being “a local tavern” with “a neighborhood atmosphere.” Is a neighborhood restaurant a better business model in this economy? Does this kind of venue make the most of the current popularity of comfort food? Is it that as Denver continues to redevelop some of its urban neighborhoods each area needs more dining options? Or is it simply safer to call yourself a local joint, eliminating the pressure of creating an experience that is worthy of a trip across town? We decided to visit one new restaurant that is playing to these trends while bucking them all at once: Interstate Kitchen & Bar, which opened this fall.

Interstate, located in the redeveloping Santa Fe art district in the old Santa Fe Tequila Company building, was designed to be what co-owner Joseph Newman calls “approachable, affordable, Americana comfort.” The space and menu are just that.

The 120-seat restaurant has the expected vintage artifacts: an old bar-style TV for the hostess stand, the rusted cab of a ’52 Chevy for bar-goers to climb in and out of, a red Mobil gas pump next to the women’s bathroom, and an antique time-card-holder-turned-credit-card-keeper behind the bar. But the space isn’t only vintage kitsch. A sleek, pinwheel-shaped banquette sits under a seven-pendant caged light fixture in the center of a subtly red (burgundy), white, and blue (turquoise) dining room, and the servers take orders by memory. Interstate feels like a dressed-up version of Steuben’s.

In keeping with the “Americana comfort” goal, chef-owner Andre Lobato’s menu is loaded with roadside classics at great prices (other than a pet peeve of an up-charge for shared plates). During lunch and dinner visits, I’ve tried the buttermilk-soaked chicken livers, which were generously floured, fried, and attentively served piping hot with a side of house-made hot sauce. The velvety corn spoon bread was topped with a pat of butter and still bubbling when it arrived. The “Cobb” salad was an ingenious marriage of the flavors from a true Cobb salad (bacon, egg, and blue cheese) with the techniques of a French frisée lardon (tossed in its dressing rather than composed and topped with a gently fried egg instead of a hardboiled one). The hot pastrami sandwich came with its sinful sauce oozing and dripping from the rye. The buffalo meatloaf was moist, tender, and served over rich, creamy grits. And I fell in love with the whiskey and beer list, with an impressive 61 whiskeys and 53 beers to choose from.



While perfectly in keeping with the theme, other dishes were less perfect in their execution. There have been deviled eggs that needed more lemon juice, ravioli filled with those miniature shrimp that must come from some frightening corner of the frozen-food aisle that I avoid, an overly acidic tomato soup, and an underdeveloped chicken-and-dumplings broth. These things are easily fixed. Interstate’s cocktail and dessert programs, however, have left even more to be desired. The restaurant’s namesake drink is a strange combination of moonshine and Curaçao, the latter not even mentioned on the menu. If you are going to play with moonshine, it had better taste good. And please, if you are going to serve me a cocktail that’s blue, make your menu clear. While desserts sounded and looked delicious, the apple in the cleverly deconstructed caramel apple with pistachios was old, and the whiskey pecan tart so dry it practically shot across the room when my fork finally made its way through the filling and shell.

These impressions of Interstate — an imperfect, but endearingly affordable, comfort-driven restaurant in a redeveloping neighborhood — make it exactly the kind of place one might dub a “neighborhood restaurant.” Interstate’s owners, however, want to be much more. The restaurant’s press materials call it a “must visit destination for people living all over the Denver metro area and ultimately the world over,” a restaurant that “draws the outlying town’s residents in.”

Even the name suggests crossing state lines to get there. While Interstate is certainly following the trends of the economy, of comfort food, and of supporting a redeveloping neighborhood, it curiously isn’t jumping on the more forgiving “local joint” bandwagon.

But maybe our definitions of “neighborhood restaurant” and “destination restaurant” have changed. As nearly every neighborhood across Denver becomes home to its own well-executed, close-enough-to-flawless dining experience, perhaps it’s something else that will cause us to head across town. In this instance, while Interstate isn’t offering fine dining, it is providing something that all of Denver can get excited about: The kitchen at Interstate is open until 1:30 in the morning. I don’t live in the Santa Fe art district, but you can guarantee I’ll be back for one of the most extensive whiskey lists in town with a side of pretty good late-night grub.

Vitals: 901 W. 10th Ave.; 720.479.8829; interstaterestaurant.com

Hours: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm weekdays; 4 pm – 2 am seven days

Prices: Beer, $3 – $12; whiskey, $4 – $25; snacks at dinner, $4 – $8; entrées at dinner, $11 – $14