🥂 Michelin Guide adds Casa Juani to Boulder’s all-star restaurant roster

Welcome to Nibbles, Boulder’s weekly food newsletter. Look for Nibbles every Tuesday in your inbox for a smorgasbord of Boulder County food and restaurant news, dining tips and cooking hacks.

Encourage your favorite foodies to sign up for this free community culinary resource, too.

As expected, Boulder-area restaurants took a bow Sept. 14 when Michelin announced its 2026 culinary roster. In this week’s Nibbles: Which local eateries scored, and which were left out? Plus: It’s cardamom spice season at a new Boulder cafe, and the coming weekend is packed with food events focused on cheese, beef, chile and biscuits. 

For those who celebrate, Colorado Bean Week runs Sept. 14-20. Legumes may not be as sexy as Palisade peaches, but Colorado annually produces about 30,000 tons of sustainable, high-protein, high-fiber pinto, black and navy beans, along with highly prized creamy mayocoba and heritage Anasazi beans. Find recipes from Colorado Dry Beans.

— John Lehndorff

---

For chefs, recognition in the annual Michelin Guide is like being awarded an Oscar. It stays with you for life. The honor is recognized not only by your peers and local diners, but also by foodies in this country and abroad, who use Michelin as a sort of tasting bucket list as they travel.

The Colorado edition of the 2026 Michelin Guide, announced Sept. 14, confirms what we already knew: Boulder plays an outsized role in Colorado’s culinary landscape. New this year: The guide has finally expanded its scope to the entire state. Previously, only eateries in Denver, Boulder, Aspen and Vail were considered.  

The Michelin Guide recognizes restaurants at three primary levels. Top restaurants receive one to three highly coveted stars. The next tier, Bib Gourmand, features eateries that have great food at a “great value.” Michelin’s Recommended restaurants have not received a star or Bib Gourmand designation, but Michelin’s inspectors still consider them worthy of diners’ attention. There used to be another Michelin Guide category, but it disappeared. We’ll get to that. 

The 2026 Michelin Guide includes only 63 Colorado restaurants. The state’s only two-star eatery remains The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver, part of Boulder’s Id Est Group, which includes the one-star Brutø in Denver and Basta and Dry Storage in Boulder. Boulder’s Frasca Food and Wine retained its one-star status. Chef Johnny Curiel, owner of Boulder’s Cozobi Fonda Fina, cleaned up, with his Mexican fine-dining restaurants Milpero, Alma Fonda Fina and Mezcaleria Alma all earning one-star honors. 

Basta and Cozobi Fonda Fina retained their Bib Gourmand designations in the 2026 Michelin Guide. The 2026 Bib Gourmand roll call also spotlights many Boulder-connected eateries in Denver. The owners of Ash’Kara include Daniel Asher and Josh Dinar of Boulder’s River & Woods. Another honoree, Glo Noodle House, recently opened Odd Rabbit in Boulder. Denver’s Tavernetta is part of the Frasca Food & Wine family that includes Pizzeria Alberico. Mister Oso has a Boulder location on the Hill, the same neighborhood where The Ginger Pig operates a takeout shop for its acclaimed Asian street food. 

A new addition to Michelin’s list of Recommended Colorado dining destinations is Boulder’s celebrated Spanish-inspired eatery Casa Juani.  

According to chef Eduardo Valle Lobo, who co-owns Casa Juani with his wife, chef Kelly Jeun:

“It’s incredibly meaningful to be recognized for food that’s so personal to us, and even more importantly, we’re honored to bring more international recognition to Boulder, a place we’re so proud to call home. We want to show that you can do something big in a small town, and we truly love being part of this community.”

Casa Juani joins returning Recommended Boulder eateries: Blackbelly Market, Bramble & Hare, Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, Oak at Fourteenth, Santo, Stella’s Cucina and Zoe Ma Ma. Also newly Recommended in Colorado is Heretík, the new Spanish-influenced restaurant from chef Theo Adley of Marigold in Lyons. Adley and Jenessa Reiman also shared a special Sommelier Award for Heretík.

I congratulate all the chefs and restaurants that caught Michelin’s eye this year. I still have qualms about the process used to pick restaurants. There are some great eateries inexplicably omitted. Cost is also a concern. The Michelin Guide’s Bib Gourmand and Recommended spots may be less expensive, but most are far from affordable. Like its James Beard counterpart, Michelin ignores local spots serving excellent food at an approachable price for a family. It seems wildly out of touch with the reality of the current economy. 

Then there’s the curious case of the missing Michelin category.

In May, Michelin announced that it would phase out its Green Star designation, which honored Boulder restaurants like Blackbelly Market and Bramble & Hare for their commitment to sustainability. Michelin is replacing the award with Mindful Voices, an editorial platform highlighting sustainability across gastronomy, hospitality and wine. Still, eliminating the formal recognition feels like a curious choice.

Got a beef with the Colorado edition of Michelin Guide for 2026? Which eateries should also have been honored? Let me know at nibbles@boulderreportinglab.org.

Cardamom spices up roll play at new Pearl Street Coffee

I love the smell of cardamom and coffee in the morning. It reminds me of growing up in a New England town with Finnish friends who introduced us to yeasted coffee bread scented with the aromatic spice. The promise of cardamom led me to Pearl Street Coffee at 2232 Pearl St. on the east edge of downtown. On a recent Saturday morning, I settled at a table in the new, family-owned shop. A steady line of customers was grabbing beverages and pastries to go.  

Sipping a big mug of dark-roasted coffee, I slowly unwrapped a cardamom bun. The yeasted, braided treat was full of buttery richness with a jolt of spice. It had just enough sweetness, without the sugary glaze that typically coats breakfast buns. Pearl Street Coffee also dishes house-made granola, cinnamon rolls, chocolate babka rolls, scones, muffins, coffee cake and cookies.  

For cardamom fans, Pearl Street Coffee joins Süti & Co, another Scandinavian coffee and pastry destination a few blocks away that also bakes cardamom buns.

Cheese Importers celebrates 50 years of doing curds their way

A half-century ago in Boulder, the great cheeses of the world were hard to find at local markets and on restaurant menus. Longmont’s family-owned Cheese Importers — originally known as Willow River Cheese — has been critical to elevating the local cheese scene. It is home to Colorado’s largest selection of cheese in its big walk-through cooler. The store celebrates 50 years of cheese on Sept. 20 with live music and snacks.

Slow Food Boulder County hosts Bites with Butchers on Sept. 18 at Blackbelly Market, featuring a butchery demo and whiskey sampling, with the beef and the grain used to make the spirits coming from Colorado’s Olander Farms. Tickets here.

Are you a Colorado green chile newbie? For a good time, trek to Pueblo this weekend for the Pueblo Chile and Frijoles Festival. The 32nd annual gathering, running Sept. 18-20, fills the air with the perfume of roasting Pueblo chiles. They’re served in everything from quesadillas to craft beer, which you can enjoy while watching the Chihuahua & Friends Parade.

Erie’s Biscuit Day at Stacy’s Kitchen and Lucile’s Creole Cafe on Sept. 19 includes breakfast biscuits and gravy and a messy no-hands biscuit-and-jam-eating contest. Registration here. 

Authentic tastes from regional cuisines across Asia and a mooncake-making class are featured at Once Upon a Bite Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept. 19 in Englewood. Tickets here.  

(Get your upcoming food event, festival or class listed free on Boulder Reporting Lab using the self-submission form here.)

Market Meals: Wake up fall meals with local tomato habanero salsa

The Boulder County Farmers Markets and local roadside farmstands have oodles of ripe field tomatoes and a variety of sweet and hot chiles available as fall begins. Combine them in an easy recipe for tomato habanero salsa.

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy, and to make plans.” — From “A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway

Want more Boulder bites?

Boulder’s new Temaki Joint pairs affordable sushi hand rolls with high-end omakase

After more than two decades in Denver-area kitchens, chef Duy Pham has brought his French training and Japanese influences to a new Baseline Road restaurant. Continue reading…

Check out recent editions of Nibbles:

🥕 Lafayette’s food scene has a new Sunday ritual

🍕 Longmont stakes a claim as Colorado’s pizza capital

🧀 Artisan cheesemaking returns to Boulder County at Dolly Mama’s

This email was sent to *|EMAIL|*
Unsubscribe from this newsletter — Opt out of all emails from *|LIST:COMPANY|*
*|LIST_ADDRESSLINE_TEXT|**|IF:REWARDS|*

*|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*