Beckon and Major Tom wine director Justin Mueller.
Last fall, for the first time ever, the Michelin Guide came to Colorado, where it bestowed one star upon just five restaurants across the state. It came as no surprise to Denverites that Beckon was among them. Flanked by a 14-seat covered patio, the 18-seat chef’s counter set in a tiny old bungalow in the RiNo neighborhood has been racking up the accolades ever since its opening in 2018 under the auspices of executive chef Duncan Holmes and director of experience Allison Anderson, whose guiding principles are intricacy and intimacy: highly sophisticated, microseasonal tasting menus on the one hand, extraordinarily warm and conscientious service on the other.
On a snowy night last December, a companion and I joined them for a special fifth-anniversary Winter Feast. Amid the expected luxuries—caviar and truffles, vintage Champagne and white Burgundy—lurked a number of totally charming surprises: clam risotto made with sushi rice and saké lees and accompanied by Wakatake Onikoroshi Junmai Ginjo, for instance, and a dessert of honey meringue with milk ice cream and sesame alongside Hatzidakis Vinsanto. The latter, I would come to learn, reflected a specific passion of wine director Justin Mueller. “I’m particularly proud of our dessert wine program. . . . It’s a category that people are scared of, [but only] because they don’t know it,” he told me during a recent phone interview. “[They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s . . . some lusciously honeyed, viscous liquid,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, no, it doesn’t have
This Article was originally published on The SOMM Journal
