Volume 55, Issue No. 7
A Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. Publication
July 2016
Expanding The Palate
Chef Jorge de la Torre Dishes On Food Trends, Peaches & Corn, and Park Hill’s Culinary Delights By Cara DeGette Editor, GPHN
Jorge de la Torres has been dean of culinary education at Johnson & Wales’ Denver campus in Park Hill since 2005. Photo courtesy Johnson & Wales University
July is National Culinary Arts Month, designed to promote the awareness for professional chefs and cooks – and their contributions to new culinary trends. In honor of the 31 days designed to honor all things food, this month we highlight many of the changes in the Park Hill restaurant scene. On page 10 we check in on what’s opened, what’s closed, who’s moved, who is winning awards – and who is currently serving up a meal of fried baby artichokes, softshell crab and strawberry Pavlova that is so beyond this world that neighborhood foodies are being instructed to Run, Not Walk to get some before it’s all gone. We also sat down with Chef Jorge de la Torre, who since 2005 has been the dean of culinary education at Johnson & Wales University in Park Hill. Over the course of his culinary career, de la Torre has also worked in San Francisco, Hawaii and Vail. In a free-ranging interview, de la Torre dished up his take on the rapidly-evolving food landscape, the next big trends, being good stewards of the earth, and his own favorite Park Hill dishes.
Greater Park Hill News: Lets talk about national culinary arts month. Is this a real thing? Jorge de la Torre: It is a real thing. It was developed so that people would appreciate and look into the professional chef world and see what they bring to culinary innovation. A lot of things that you see once they become mainstream – say a dish that ends up on the menu at TGI Fridays. Maybe X amount of years ago some chef was toying around with that innovation, and it was exclusive and then there was a lot of hype, and and then suddenly it becomes the mainstream. For example, take Caesar salad. Once upon a time it was made tableside, at the finest dining restaurants. Now, where can you not find a Caesar salad? I mean everywhere, at a convenience store. These are innovations that affect our lives, thanks to some chef who developed that. GPHN: So what is this year’s culinary innovation, which will soon be coming to a 7-11 store near you? Jorge de la Torre: Well, I think it’s not so much an innovation, but the trends are going to be more Hawaiian. We’re going to see a lot of Hawaiian style – the types of fish
that we typically get, the preparations will be becoming very popular, like poke, plate lunches. Plus the flavors, tropical flavors. GPHN: Why is that? Jorge de la Torre: Who knows? That is what people sometimes latch onto and people are enjoying it. Also every year because of celebrity chefs and television and cooking shows that are all the rage, people are trying more types of food. Fifteen years ago people were not as adventurous as they are now. They are checking out the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show, and watching the travel channel featuring 50 places in the world to eat next, and they plan their trip around that. They say, hey, we’re going to this town. And were going to this place because so-and-so said it was great. And that’s phenomenal! GPHN: Yelp and social media are huge driving forces, right? Jorge de la Torre: Absolutely. People taking pictures of every meal they’ve eaten. You know I was just in Seattle and I can show you pictures of three things I ate there. GPHN: So you do that too. continued on page 11
Architectural examples from left: Tudor with Catslide, Foursquare with Dormer, Bungalow with Park Hill Porch. Photos courtesy Neil Funsch
Bungalows, Foursquares, and The Park Hill Porch Group Moving Forward On Historic Landmark Designation By Neil Funsch Special to the GPHN
Summer is here, and with the hot weather the efforts of the local Historical Park Hill Landmark Committee and its supporters to establish protection for the neighborhood continues. Before I cover what we have been up to and where we are going I’d like to recap what it is that is being protected beyond just the aesthetic character of Park Hill. The original Park Hill neighborhood has been judged as historically significant by the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service according to two criteria. First, it’s a rare living example of historical community planning and development in U.S. urban areas. It served as one of Denver’s first exclusively residential areas
A little background, a little history The area was bought and platted by Baron Von Winckler in April of 1887. That means, next year Park Hill will celebrate its 130th birthday. The area covers 32 blocks, from Colorado Boulevard to the east side of Dahlia, and from the north side of Montview Boulevard to 26th Avenue. There are approximately 700 homes in the district, with roughly 95 percent of the
homes built between 1893 and 1941 and another 4 percent built between 1945 and 1954. A wide variety of residential housing forms, styles and sizes occur in this first Park Hill district and trace the historical development of residential architectural styles. The predominantly brick dwellings vary from small two-bedroom single-bath bungalows to multi-story architect designed mansions. Also included are many small and large English/Norman Colonial Revival forms. The majority of these are in good to excellent condition and maintain a high degree of historic integrity relative to their original construction. The first homes built were along and close to Montview Boulevard and Ash and Albion streets. These were nearly all architect-de4th of July Parade Turns Lucky 7
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Don’t Ever Call It Platte To Park Hill
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Inside This Issue
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April2016 July 2016
and one of Denver’s first “streetcar suburbs.” The neighborhood is also significant for its architecture. It is a living example of popular architectural styles for a period of 60 years, from the 1890s to the mid-20th century when the area was 95 percent completed. As such it is considered a valuable and irreplaceable area for the study of residential architecture.
signed homes and considered a transitional style from the Victorian/Queen Anne to the early editions of the Foursquare and Bungalow styles. Much of the district’s building occurred in the two periods immediately before and after American involvement in World War I (1917 to 1918) and prior to the Great Depression of 1929. By 1934 the majority of lots had been purchased and only infill properties remained. The process of completing these infills continued fitfully through the 1940s and 50s, through today. Currently, only about six open lots remain.
Architectural expressions The styles of housing changed with the years, as a new century looked for new ways to express itself architecturally. Dur-
The Scoop on Travel to Cuba
continued on page 15
Next GPHC Meeting Thursday, Aug. April 74 at 6:30 p.m. 2823 Fairfax St., Denver
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