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reviewed on: April 17, 2009
With all the people who make the daily commute from Evergreen, it’s hard to imagine that not too long ago the trek from there down to Denver was not a quick drive on a super-highway. So, back in 1924, what is now the Bistro at Marshdale was built as a tea room where exhausted travelers could grab a bite to eat and even spend the night before tackling the final leg of their journey into Denver.
My personal history with the site only goes back about 30 years but, in that time, I’ve eaten at the Bistro quite a few times under different ownerships, as various people tried to create a winning restaurant there. Some have been good. Some have been dreadful. None have lasted very long. And, ironically, most of them have kept the name Bistro at Marshdale in an attempt to capitalize on the historic nature of the spot. So, a year ago, when I heard that a young couple had taken over the building, were calling it the Bistro at Marshdale, and serving Mediterranean food, I had my misgivings. Over the last twelve months, though, I’ve heard nothing but good and, under the assumption that that many people can’t be wrong, we checked it out this week.
The Bistro is not a fancy place. It’s rustic, as you would expect from a building that was constructed using techniques that are archaic by today’s standards. But that’s also what gives it its charm. There are the original hardwood floors, along with beams and supports made of tree trunks with the bark still on them. The tables are unadorned wood sans cloths. There is one main dining room with a cozy fireplace, and two narrow sunrooms tacked on to the front of the building. And it was in one of the sunrooms that we sat, watching a small group of elk feeding across the highway and, to our surprise, a beautiful red fox trot jauntily through the parking lot.
The atmosphere is, and has been, there. All that’s been lacking through the years is really good food, which brings us to the present. The appetizer selection offers quite a few traditional favorites, from escargot to bruschetta and pate, though there are unique touches to the conventional preparation. So, the bruschetta is done with forest mushrooms and gruyere cheese, and the escargot comes in a garlic butter with a spiral pastry. The bowl of mussels we ordered brought a large enough portion that it could easily have served as an entrée for one person, and the accompanying tomato and herb broth had a surprising spicy kick as we sat sopping up as much as we could with slices of crusty homemade bread.
As with the appetizers, the pasta entrees display some appealing touches which take them beyond the ordinary. The salmon combined with penne in a vodka sauce is house-smoked at the Bistro. The chicken cordon bleu is made with stilton cheese, and the Fruitti di Mare is prepared with a lobster broth. We enjoyed the eggplant parmigiano, wonderfully spiced thick slabs of breaded eggplant served with an herbed tomato sauce over fettuccine. I’m usually not a big fan of eggplant prepared this way, but the flavor and texture were simply excellent.
Non-pasta entrees include the usual veal Marsala and chicken piccata, as well as specialty items like breast of pheasant with an orange sauce, halibut with a tomato-caper compote, honey-mustard glazed salmon, and the requisite New York strip steak and filet. The beef brisket slow-roasted in red wine brought a mouth-watering portion of melt-in-your-mouth brisket accented with the concentrated taste of the wine.
Despite being past the point where we should have stopped, we have a hard time saying no to panna cotta. It’s a simple dish, but oh, so rich and full of calories. But it came with an assortment of berries, so we figured the healthy aspect of the fruit balanced out any negative traits of the pudding itself. Talk about denial.
The Bistro at Marshdale is easy to find just outside of Evergreen on Highway 73, the road that connects Evergreen to Conifer. They’re open every day for dinner, and serve an ala carte brunch on Sundays.
Bistro at Marshdale
27376 Spruce Lane, Evergreen
303-674-7670
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