Colorado's Most Acclaimed Neighbourhood Table
There is a particular kind of restaurant that wins awards not because it is trying to, but because it has solved something that most kitchens never figure out: the cooking is exceptional and the welcome is genuine, and neither quality undermines the other. Annette, chef-owner Caroline Glover's 50-seat wood-fired American restaurant inside Aurora's Stanley Marketplace, is exactly that kind of place. It won the 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mountain. It was named one of America's Best New Restaurants by both Bon Appétit and Food & Wine. It does none of these things by accident.
Glover built Annette around two commitments: scratch cooking and hospitality that feels like a home visit rather than a transaction. The wood-fired hearth at the centre of the kitchen dictates the menu's character — smoke, char, caramelisation, and the kind of depth that only fire produces in the right hands. The seasonal menu rotates with Colorado's produce calendar, meaning what you ate in March will not be what you find in September, and both versions will be worth the trip.
The Wood-Fired Kitchen
Glover's cooking is technically accomplished but not self-consciously so. The wood fire is a tool, not a performance. The result is food that reads as simple and lands as complex: whole roasted fish that achieves a skin crispness that pans cannot replicate, roasted chicken with vegetables that have taken on the smoke of the hearth, mussels and frites cooked with the kind of attention that makes a classic feel new. The Wagyu burger at happy hour has become something of a local institution — a measure of how well Glover executes even the things that lesser restaurants treat as afterthoughts.
Vegetables receive the same seriousness as protein. Seasonal salads and roasted vegetable plates change constantly and are never decoration. The whole ethos is Colorado's best produce, treated with the respect it deserves, presented without unnecessary ceremony. The result is cooking that is fundamentally satisfying rather than merely impressive.
Stanley Marketplace and the Setting
Stanley Marketplace is a converted 1950s airport hangar in Aurora — a long, glass-roofed hall of independent retailers, cafes, and restaurants that has become one of the great urban market projects in the Mountain West. Annette occupies a corner of it with 50 seats and a wall of windows that opens the kitchen to the dining room. It is casual in the best sense: the tables are not draped, the lighting is warm rather than theatrical, and the noise level is the sound of people enjoying themselves rather than performing. Come for dinner. Sit at the bar if you're alone. The counter seats have a direct view into the kitchen and constitute one of Denver's finest solo dining experiences.
Why It Works for a First Date
First dates require exactly what Annette delivers: food interesting enough to generate genuine conversation, a room warm enough to make you feel at ease, and a price point that doesn't create the low-grade anxiety that comes with spending $200 on someone you've known for three weeks. Annette is the kind of restaurant where you arrive with a stranger and leave feeling like you've already shared something real. The $$$ price tier means a full evening — cocktails, food, dessert, wine — lands comfortably under $100 per head. That is a remarkable proposition for a James Beard Award-winning kitchen.
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Community Reviews
"We drove from Boulder specifically for this. The whole roasted fish was the best thing I've eaten in Colorado — the skin was perfect, the flesh was flawless, and the vegetables around it were better than the main at most other restaurants in the city."
"Brought a first date here. The bar seats were available — we watched the kitchen work through the whole meal. She asked to come back the following week. That's the Annette effect."
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