The Ten Best Places for Green Chile in Denver

Green chile is not only a staple of Southwestern cuisine, it's a dish Denver turns to for comfort and sustenance. This year more than ever , we need a dose of our favorite warming green chile, whether straight up in a bowl or ladled over burritos, omelets, fries or burgers. Here are ten of our favorite cantinas, bars and restaurants for green chile in its many delicious variations.

Adobo

4401 Tejon Street
720-480-5898

The advantage that food trucks have over full-fledged restaurants is their ability to explore untapped creative territory in street-food form. Chef Blaine Baggao is a former New Mexico resident whose family hails from the Philippines, and he puts his background to fine use on his food truck's menu. His New Mexico-style green chile (made with Hatch, natch) punched up with smoked-pork carnitas struts its stuff atop fries, in breakfast burritos and on tacos. Experience an Asian-Southwestern fusion with the chef's green chile dumplings that burn so good. Since May 2020, Adobo has been posted up at the Monkey Barrel in northwest Denver, so you can grab a beer or a mixed drink with something smothered in thick, smoky green chile.

Brewery Bar II

150 Kalamath Street
303-893-0971

The stewy mix at this Denver classic varies almost from day to day in its heat level, but it's always brimming with pork and tinted reddish from a liberal amount of tomatoes. Folks keep coming back to Brewery Bar II for those occasions when the green chile is dead-on — and deadly hot. On those days, not even a mound of shredded yellow cheese or a dollop of sour cream will save your lips from the sear that'll stick with you for hours. Better to side your smothered burrito with a "Tiny" — the old-school bar's biggest pour of suds. There's another Brewery Bar in Lone Tree, but we prefer the Kalamath watering hole for its no-nonsense blue-collar service and style — which you can currently enjoy on the expanded outdoor seating spread across the restaurant's parking lot.

El Taco de Mexico

714 Santa Fe Drive
303-623-3926

No list of Mexican specialties in Denver would be complete without something from El Taco de Mexico, the go-to taco joint for every kitchen rat and high-end chef in town. The green chile here is thin in body but not in flavor, as deep layers of chile and slow-cooked stock combine to create a luscious pool around fat burritos. This isn't Colorado-style (or New Mexico, either, for that matter); it's just pure chile verde from abuela to you. Celebrate the taqueria's induction in the James Beard Foundation's elite group of America's Classics — which takes place  Friday, September 25 — by ordering a chile relleno burrito doused in the house green chile.

El Tejado

2651 South Broadway
303-722-3987

For decades, El Tejado has attracted Mexican nationals and gringos alike with its authentic Mexican fare — seafood cocktails in giant goblets, for example, and lengua tacos. But the biggest draw here is decidedly Colorado in origin: The green chile is addictive, a gravy-like concoction that's equally good poured over a skillet of eggs and potatoes, smothering a fat beef burrito or just in a bowl on its own. This mainstay on South Broadway changed ownership several years ago, but the green chile remains unchanged. Get it while it's hot — and if you're in the know, you can ask for it even hotter.

La Fiesta

2340 Champa Street
303-292-2800

Calling La Fiesta's green chile old-school is like calling the sun "kind of hot." Since 1964, the Herrera family has been ladling up gravy-thick green chile to top burritos, Mexican hamburgers, chiles rellenos and other heaping plates of Den-Mex goodness. Close enough to downtown that it has often been a lunchtime choice for business deals and meetings of city officials, the restaurant — once a full-blown supper club and dance hall — still feels like a neighborhood joint in tree-lined Curtis Park.

La Fogata

5670 East Evans Avenue
303-753-9458

When is your green chile not green? When you're in Denver, where the Southwestern staple comes in shades of tan, brown and even orange, depending on the ingredients. Den-Mex green chile is often thickened with a slurry of flour and oil, which can deepen the color if the flour is left to brown a little. That's how it's done at La Fogata, opened by Danette Calhoun back in 1990. The thick, warming gravy also leans just slightly into the orange color palette, the better to match swirls of shredded cheese that meld into the sauce atop burritos, rellenos and enormous Mexican hamburgers. But don't let the muted color fool you; this green chile still glows a little with a heat that slowly builds until you find yourself reaching for another cerveza.

Los Dos Potrillos

Four locations in Centennial, Highlands Ranch, Littleton and Parker