Mark Antonation

An Nguyen, chef and co-owner of Aurora’s Dân Dã, had no intention of opening a second restaurant. Although her parents, Ha Pham and Thai Nguyen, closed their 40-year old neighborhood staple New Saigon in early 2024 and wanted her to take over the South Federal Boulevard space, An didn’t think it meshed with her own culinary vision. But driving down Federal and visiting the empty dining room last winter made her think twice.

The ways in which Yasu and Toshi Kizaki have fundamentally shaped Denver’s dining scene are incalculable. Largely credited with introducing the city to Japanese cuisine upon the opening of Sushi Den in 1984, the natives of Tamana, on Japan’s southern Kyushu Island, were the first locally, and among the first in the United States, to source seafood directly from Japan—some of which they were also dry-aging many years before the tradition became a showy stateside trend.

“Fino sherry is my secret weapon,” says Max Gellmann, lead bartender of the recently opened Casa Juani on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall. “Instead of MSG or saline solution, which some bartenders rely on to liven up their cocktails, I use fino, which is made from grapes that are grown by the sea. The salty sea air flavors the grapes; it seeps into the barrel as the wine ages.” We are both admiring the drink he has set before me: the Spanish martini, Casa Juani’s signature cocktail.