As Grossi does with the entrees, Gudino uses standard ingredients with a twist-like beets in a red velvet cake topped with goat-cheese frosting or sesame seeds in a lemon bar. It’s worth saving some room for a malted chocolate-chip cookie or a slice of pie to share. The staples don’t change much, though the preparation and some ingredients do in order to showcase seasonal flavors.Īll of the breads, cakes, pies and cookies are created by head baker Gabrielle Gudino. He wants people to enjoy new creations and also have access to familiar darlings. Second, he doesn’t ever want his customers to lose all their favorites at once. First, many ingredients don’t go “in” or “out” of season abruptly-they peak and wane. Grossi does a cyclical menu of sorts, but he rotates items out one at a time, so the entire menu doesn’t change at once. The Regional understands you can’t rush the process-hominy needs to cook long and slow to release the starch that adds to the creaminess. I hail from the South and struggle to find truly creamy/salty grits out West. Luckily, as a regional standout, grits are on the lunch, dinner and brunch menus. Dinner is more upscale, though never overly elaborate, such as savory braised beef or a beautifully cooked lamb sirloin. Lunches are casual and wholesome, showcasing trout or fried-chicken sandwiches, salads and curly fries. The difference? Wings are smoked with a touch of mountain gorgonzola and honey, curds come paired with a Bloody Mary cream for dipping, pork chops sidle up to brown-butter potatoes and pickled apple sauce. Menu items are inventive but always familiar-wings, cheese curds, pork chops. Think Tatamagouche oysters with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc or a dry martini made with locally distilled MTN gin. In keeping with the idea of food you know with a twist, the bar offers reliable standards as well as bartender-inspired surprises to enjoy with small plates either on their own or before dinner in the dining room. Grossi felt like Fort Collins diners craved soulful food, and also yearned for more places to discover imaginative and refined cocktails, so he brought Jason Snopkowski, the former bar manager at Avanti, on board to curate the beer, wine and spirits offered and to collaborate on the bar menu. The vibe of The Regional, for Grossi, is to feel like a gathering place where anyone, foodie or not, can be comfortable and where the dishes are familiar no matter what part of the country you hail from-all done in an atmosphere that’s very much like walking into someone’s home and watching as they cook your dinner. The couple also planned to start a family, and they saw Fort Collins as an ideal place to raise kids. Proximity to farms and ranches he was eager to collaborate with was important, as was being near Denver, where Grossi is well connected. Grossi had an impressive toehold in the Denver food scene as head chef at Lola and Jax Fish House before opening his own place-The Regional was actually born at Denver’s Avanti Food and Beverage, an uber-hip cluster of eateries in a shipping container compound.īut Grossi and his wife wanted to put down roots somewhere a little more livable and explored both Salida and Fort Collins as options before deciding to settle in Northern Colorado. I spent one happy afternoon tucking into a root-veggie melt with smashed roasted beets and cream cheese grilled on rye bread, gooey with melted Swiss, and made a mental note to reconfigure my garden plot this year so I could grow more beets.Ĭhef/owner Kevin Grossi wants you to eat food you know, but in brand-new ways, and since October 2018, he’s been serving up this vision in a tastefully revamped space on Mason Street (the one Tasty Harmony occupied before they moved). A meal at The Regional means appreciating staples in new ways-like eating carrots cooked in dirt, or relishing a venison osso buco served with buttered popcorn polenta.
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