Boulder’s Frasca retains Michelin star

BOULDER — Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder on Monday retained the one-star rating it received in 2023, the first year the celebrated Michelin Guide rated restaurants in Colorado.

Only one Colorado restaurant was added to this year’s starred list in the announcement made Monday morning: Alma Fonda Fina, a high-end Mexican eatery that opened nine months ago in Denver’s Lower Highland neighborhood. Its chef, Johnny Curiel, also won a Michelin Young Chef/Culinary Professional Award.

Michelin, which designates the best restaurants around the world, sent its mystery diners into eateries in Boulder, Denver, Aspen and Vail for the first time last year. The places they selected might receive one of the guide’s coveted stars – one star for “restaurants using top-quality ingredients, where dishes with distinct flavors are prepared to a consistently high standard,” two stars “when the personality and talent of the chef are evident in their expertly crafted dishes [and] their food is refined and inspired,” or three stars for its “highest award, given for the superlative cooking of chefs at the peak of their profession; their cooking is elevated to an art form and some of their dishes are destined to become classics.”

Restaurants might also earn a “green star,” first introduced in Michelin’s 2021 guides to recognize “restaurants at the forefront of the industry when it comes to their sustainable practices,” the company’s website says. “They hold themselves accountable for both their ethical and environmental standards, and work with sustainable producers and suppliers to avoid waste and reduce or even remove plastic and other non-recyclable materials from their supply chain.”

Then there’s Michelin’s equivalent of television’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” the “Bib Gourmand” awards it introduced in 1997 to recognize eateries that provide simple foods prepared creatively at a reasonable price, the best values for the dollar – or franc, or pound, or yen, or whatever.

Among Boulder eateries, Frasca received one star last year and kept it this year, while Blackbelly Market and Bramble & Hare were among the green-star winners and Basta earned a Bib Gourmand recognition.

Several Boulder restaurants kept their places on Michelin’s “Recommended” list, including Blackbelly, Bramble & Hare, the Dushanbe Tea House, Oak at Fourteenth, Santo, Stella’s Cucina and Zoe Ma Ma.

Snubbed once again was Flagstaff House, the mountainside venue that has lured diners to new heights since the 1950s, is listed as one of OpenTable’s 100 most romantic restaurants in America, and has received the Wine Spectator Grand Award every year since 1983 for having one of the most coveted wine lists in the world.

See Michelin’s complete list of Colorado restaurants for 2024 here.