On our last night in Steamboat Springs last September, we decided to find someplace nice for dinner. We had eaten at the E3 Chophouse on our previous visit (click here to read the entry on E3 Chophouse) and just down the street from that restaurant was another place that we'd had our eye on over time - a nice upscale place by the name of Aurum Food & Wine. We made reservations to go to Aurum for our last dinner on this trip to Steamboat.
Ever since he started working in restaurants at the age of 13, Phillips "Phil" Armstrong had always wanted to run his own restaurant. In the years after he graduated from Colorado State University he worked behind the scenes in restaurants and hotels learning his way around running a restaurant. One of those restaurants along the way included the acclaimed SugarToad in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. It was at SugarToad when Armstrong's boss - noted chef Jimmy Sneed - gave him the idea of opening an underground restaurant that would be invitation only and would involve a revolving door of food line workers who worked in higher end restaurants, but who were not quite full-fledged chefs.
Phil Armstrong eventually moved back to Denver and enlisted his friend Brad Fentress, the owner of a trendy home furnishings design studio, to help out with his dream of an underground restaurant. Fentress' design studio - Studio Como - became the home for Hush, a once-a-month, invitation-only restaurant that would allow unknown chefs or line workers to make a meal for a small group of people. The first meal was held in the fall of 2009 and featured line workers from the world-renown Alinea restaurant in Chicago.
Pictured right - Phil Armstrong. Photo courtesy Aurum Food & Wine website.
Over the next three years, Armstrong called upon a vast community of local food truck chefs, line cooks, and chefs who wanted to step outside the ropes and prepare meals that they couldn't prepare in their restaurants, i.e., a steakhouse chef who wanted to make Asian-inspired food. Hush was an overwhelming success and became one of the most coveted invitations in town.
One of the chefs that came in for one of the first Hush events was Chase Wilbanks, the executive chef at La Tour restaurant in Vail, CO. Armstrong and Wilbanks struck up a friendship that continued when Wilbanks moved to Denver to become the executive sous chef at Shanahan's steakhouse. (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on Shanahan's.) When Armstrong was coming up with ideas for his new restaurant, he turned to Wilbanks for guidance.
Armstrong had been going back and forth between Denver and Telluride, CO for a few years, but decided upon another ski-centric town to open his restaurant. He found a restaurant where the owner - who had won $27 million in the Colorado Lottery a number of years before - was wanting to sell the place. Armstrong took over the spot and redecorated the restaurant with a gold color scheme. He called his new restaurant Aurum after the Latin word for gold. With Wilbanks running the kitchen and devising a menu, Aurum Food & Wine opened in May of 2014.
Aurum quickly became a place that was known for good food in a fun atmosphere, something Armstrong emphasized in his initial plans for a restaurant. He didn't want his restaurant to be stuffy or snooty, but a place where people could enjoy their food while having a good time with their dining companions.
Armstrong set up a company - Destination Hospitality Group - to oversee the development of other restaurants in ski resort towns across Colorado. The second restaurant Armstrong opened was Table 79 Foodbar, a small bistro/bar with a limited menu that opened in Steamboat Springs 2017. A second Aurum opened in Breckinridge, CO in 2018, and a unique concept restaurant - Periodic Table - opened in 2019. Located in the Catamount Ranch just outside of Steamboat Springs, the restaurant completely changes its menu every six months. (Plans for a third Aurum to open in Aspen, CO in 2020 were stalled by the pandemic. However, they hope to have it open later this year.)
My wife and I pulled up just past Aurum just before our reservation time of 7 p.m. (see map) Just off to the side of Aurum is their outdoor patio area that looks out on to the Yampa River directly behind the restaurant. The first couple days we were in Steamboat it was patio weather. Then an uncommon late summer snowstorm came through the area and temperatures struggled to reach 60 degrees the rest of the time we were there. Of course, the week after we were in Steamboat, it was back up into the mid-70's.
Part of the patio area was covered with artificial turf with a number of standing tables that patrons can hang out at on warmer days. In the winter time, Aurum constructs yurts on the patio which allow patrons the experience of dining outside in the elements. The yurts are heated, but not insulated, so they caution people to dress warmly for the yurt dining experience.
Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by the hostess whom we told we had reservations. "We're a little slow tonight, so reservations probably weren't needed," she said as she escorted us back to the dining area. "But we do appreciate you calling ahead," she said.
The bar area was just off to the right side of the hostess stand. It was set up for social distancing - no chairs at the bar, but they had lounge chairs and tables up against the bar instead. A group of guys were in the back corner of the bar watching a football game on one of the flatscreen televisions they had on the wall.
We were seated in a little alcove next to a group of women who were definitely having a good time. They were pretty loud and my wife wondered why in the hell they would seat us at this particular table when there seemed to be a number of other tables - especially closer to the windows that looked out over the Yampa River - that were open. But it wasn't long before the women finished their after dinner drinks and took off.
Our server for the evening was a pleasant young lady by the name of Lynn. We engaged her in conversation after our dinner was finished to find out her story. Like many people who work at restaurants whom we talked to during our trips to Steamboat Springs, Lynn did not grow up in the area. She was from the Virginia side of the Washington D.C. area and had moved out to Breckinridge to become a ski instructor. "I really didn't care for the scene in Breckinridge that much," she said echoing our sentiments about Breckinridge. "So I moved here 7 years ago and I love it." She said that she now considered Steamboat Springs home and, in fact, was getting ready to get married in a few months. Spoiler alert - Lynn did a great job for us all evening long.
The menu at Aurum features a number of items that are locally sourced from farms and markets in the area. The menu wasn't extensive, and we were fine with that. They had dishes consisting of beef, seafood, lamb and pork. Aurum had a number of appetizers and shareable plates such as tikka marsala mussels, pork carnitas tacos, and crispy curried cauliflower served with shishito peppers. I remarked to Lynn when she came back to check on us that some of the appetizers sounded pretty good and I was seriously thinking of getting a couple of them for my meal that night. She said, "We get people that do that all the time. Some of the regulars that come in, I pretty much know the appetizers or shareable plates they're going to get before they sit down."
We started out with drinks - a cranberry/vodka martini for my wife, and I got a pint of the First Cast IPA from the Elevation Beer Company located in Poncha Springs, CO, a small town about a two-hour drive south and west of Colorado Springs. Later on for our meal that evening, I got us a bottle of the Muga rioja reserva wine from Spain, a nice red that we've had many times before.
My wife thought she needed a salad before the meal and they had a mixed greens salad available that evening. She considered the roasted beet salad initially, but she thought she better have some greens because she was looking at getting either the trout or salmon dinner that evening and they didn't come with green veggies.
Even though there wasn't a lot to choose from on the menu, we were still having trouble figuring out what we wanted. I ended up getting the lamb chops. It came on a bed of pureed sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli. Lynn asked me how I would like them to be prepared and I immediately said, "Have the chef prepare them the way he would make them for himself." She told me that they were cooked medium when they were served to me. They were very good - tender and flavorful, but they weren't very big. But it was fine with me. Since there weren't a lot of people in the restaurant and I had my back to the rest of the dining room, I picked up the bones and gnawed at the meat that was still attached. My wife laughed and said, "You're lucky this place isn't busy or you wouldn't get away with that!"
My wife took a completely different turn when it came to ordering her dinner that evening. She got the beef tenderloin filet. It came on a bed of puréed potatoes with a mixed seasonal vegetable medley. The filet and potatoes were in a pool of a rich brown demi-glace. (That was another reason why I got a bottle of red wine rather than getting wine by the glass that evening.) She thought her tenderloin filet was excellent. She remarked that it was probably a much better choice than either of the two fish entrees she was considering.
Since the portions weren't all that large, we decided to get some dessert. My wife was more up for dessert so she ended up ordering the chocolate cake with a vanilla-mousse bomb with raspberry sauce. I went the lighter direction and got the lemon sorbet. And I got an espresso to go along with my sorbet. I had a bite of the chocolate cake and it was extremely rich. The vanilla mousse bomb was also very good. But I was more than happy with my choice of the lemon sorbet.
As I said earlier, we engaged Lynn in a nice conversation when she brought our check to the table. She said that she really liked the people in Steamboat Springs. "A lot of people in the service industry out here are from somewhere else," she explained. "It's that mix with the locals that makes Steamboat what it is." She said the people are extremely friendly and welcoming in Steamboat Springs. "I didn't get that in Breckinridge," she told us. We couldn't agree with her more - we absolutely love Steamboat Springs and didn't care for Breckinridge all that much when we were there.
For the last dinner in Steamboat during our trip out there last September, we picked out a winner in Aurum Food & Wine. It wasn't cheap, but we didn't find a restaurant in our travels there that isn't cheap. But I was more than happy with my lamb chops and my wife was very happy with her choice of the beef tenderloin filet. Aurum was a nice place, everyone was friendly and accommodating - including our server Lynn - and we wish we would have been able to enjoy dinner on the deck over looking the Yampa River. Maybe next time as I have a feeling that Steamboat Springs will be in a regular rotation for future vacation destinations for us.
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