Hop Alley

Hop Alley takes its name from Denver's 19th-century Chinatown, and it treats that history as a live wire rather than a museum plaque. The food backs up the attitude: Sichuan chilies do real work here, numbing the tongue under a soundtrack that has nothing to do with pipa music. The kitchen runs classics through a curveball — schmaltzy Chinese broccoli dusted with duck salt, pork and pickled cabbage dumplings with real heat behind them. Nothing on the menu reads as a straight copy of anything else.

The drinks match the kitchen's nerve, including boozy cocktails served out of boba-style cups, which sounds like a gimmick until you taste one. Service and atmosphere hold up their end too, in a room that has clearly figured out what kind of restaurant it wants to be and kept refining it rather than coasting.

Four straight years of Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition and two James Beard semifinalist nods, for the kitchen and separately for the wine program, aren't accidents of timing. Nine years in, Hop Alley is still the place other Denver Chinese restaurants get measured against.