Courtesy Denver Museum of Contemporary Art

David Adjaye's luminescent new building for the Museum of Contemporary Art will raise Denver's art game still further.

Courtesy the Robischon Gallery

Established galleries like the Robischon, where Richard Serra and Judy Pfaff show, remain a top draw.

Richard Serra Fang Lijun Judy Pfaff Serra Clyfford Still Still the Same, but Smaller Philippe Vergne on the Future of Dia Canadian Town and Developer Tussle over Serra Work

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Stay:

THE BROWN PALACE
Completed in 1892, Denver’s grand dame of a hotel is not to be missed. Go for tea in the staggering eight-story atrium, the urban equivalent of the most magnificent of National Park lodge lobbies. Or duck into the Ship’s Tavern for an ale and a gander at the antique clipper ship models. The 241 rooms and suites range in style from vaguely Victorian to Art Deco-ish.
321 17th St.
800/321-2599
RATES: $200–$1,200
www.brownpalace.com

HOTEL TEATRO
Located in what was once the Denver Tramway Building, the Hotel Teatro takes its inspiration from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts across the street. Gently riding its theme, the hotel selected fantastic costumes and large black-and-white photo-graphs of actors in theatrical productions to decorate its public spaces and 110 rooms. Service is center stage. As for the dreamy beds, they’re, well, mile-high.
1100 14th St.
888/727-1200
RATES: $250–$1,400
www.hotelteatro.com

THE OXFORD
At 80 rooms, the Oxford is more intimate than its younger sister, the Brown Palace. From the beginning the Oxford itself supported the arts, largely by taking in trade paintings. As recently as the 1970s artists were still singing (or, in the case of Tom Waits, growling) for their supper.
1600 17th St.
800/228-5838
RATES: $200–$800
www.theoxfordhotel.com

Eat:

That Denver hosts the Great American Beer Festival each fall may explain its fine taste for hops and prolonged adolescence when it comes to food. But there are pockets of maturity at smaller, chef-owned restaurants.

FRASCA
If you didn’t book your table a month in advance, a spot at the bar is still worth the half-hour drive to Boulder. Sommelier Bobby Stuckey and chef Lachlan Mackinon-Patterson, French Laundry alums and Slow Food members, are your guides to transcendent farmhouse tastes of the Fruili-Venezia Giulia region like frico caldo, stufato, and a selection of prosciutto, speck, and salame that’s not to be missed.
1738 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO
303/442-6966

POTAGER
Ten years on, it’s still hard to get a table at this former storefront tucked away on a residential street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when chef Teri Rippeto is freshly inspired by her morning trip to the farmer’s market in Boulder.
109 Ogden St.
303/832-5788

RIOJA/ BISTRO VENDOME
If chef Jennifer Jasinski were ever to remove the artichoke mousse and goat cheese tortelloni from the menu at Rioja, her faithful would walk out—across the street to the latest restaurant to fall into her capable hands, Bistro Vendome. There, traditional steak tartare and escargots are popular, as is the weekend brunch.
Rioja
1431 Larimer St.
303/820-2282
Bistro Vendome
1420 Larimer St.
303/825-3232

SUSHI SASA
If the crowds at Sushi Sasa are any indication, Denver is yearning to veer from the steak (and buffalo and elk) path. Chef Wayne Conwell may link Japan with the cuisines of other nations in dishes like saffron marinara mussels, but he also brews his own soy sauce and is picky about the sushi chefs he hires and the fish he imports.
2401 15th St. #80
303/433-7272

Z CUISINE
Chef Patrick DuPays’s French ways with Colorado lamb have lured so many fans that Z has already more than doubling its space. DuPays is on top of the local-purveyor trend even if his dishes, like cassoulet and country paté, are steeped in tradition.
2239 W. 30th Ave.
303/477-1111

Play:

CRUISE ROOM
Modeled after a lounge on the Queen Mary, the Oxford Hotel’s restored 1933 bar is a tucked-away lozenge that plays Duke Ellington tunes on the jukebox and serves a delicious lemon drop cocktail.
1600 17th St.
303/628-5400

P DESIGN GALLERY
Since opening the P Design Gallery just a year ago, Paul and Pifuka Hardt have introduced Denver to designers such as Brooklyn-based Jason Miller (whose porcelain antler light fixture somehow seems less radical in the West than it does back east) as well as to homegrown talent like David Larabee and Dexter Thornton of DoubleButter, who have mastered the art of the simple and angular. Their Roadrunner side chair in oiled MDF is an exercise in the economy of design and materials.
2590 Walnut St.
720/259-2516
www.pdesigngallery.com