In our new series #TBT, or Throwback Thursdays, we’ll revisit some of the Denver metro area’s tried and true restaurants that have become institutions. These places have weathered the shifts in our city’s restaurant landscape. As flashy newcomers enter and exit, these restaurants, bars, and cafes remain, though sometimes get overlooked by the fickle short-term attention span of a social media-driven obsession with the new and the now.
Next up we revisit Tamayo, a bustling restaurant that helped revitalize Denver’s iconic Larimer Square. The eatery opened in 2001 and recently completed a total redesign of the space and a refresh of the menu. Twenty-plus years later, the mission to elevate modern Mexican cuisine remains the same.
A Redesigned Tamayo Looks Back On Its Legacy
One large challenge a decades-old restaurant faces comes in the form of relevance. Dining trends shift. Palettes evolve. New competitors emerge. So aside from loyalty, many older places must find a way to ring in the new.
For almost 25 years chef Richard Sandoval’s Tamayo has remained the unwavering anchor of Larimer Square’s dining scene. As one of the city’s first upscale Mexican restaurants, it’s played an undeniable role in Denver’s culinary evolution and continues to thrive based on its ability to evolve and adapt along with it.
“I’ve always believed that restaurants need to evolve,” said Sandoval. “You need to take care of them. You need to reinvest money back into them. A lot of people don’t do that, they just kind of take and take and not take care of it. But I’ve always believed you have to keep investing and keep evolving to stay relevant. If you keep evolving and keep having passion, people will keep coming.”
The History
Today, Sandoval presides over a global empire of over 60 restaurants across four continents. But when Tamayo opened in 2001, it was only his fourth, and first outside of New York.
By any measure, expanding to Denver was equally highly unlikely and profoundly impactful. At the time, Denver was largely considered a culinary backwater, not the thriving culture it is today. Sandoval’s third restaurant Maya had just earned a rave review in the New York Times. Denver was nowhere near his radar before Larimer Square developer Jeff Hermanson, seeking a culinary anchor for his vision of the historic block, invited the rising star to visit.
“He came to me and asked if I would be interested in coming to Denver and getting a great location on a great corner space,” said Sandoval. “At that time, I thought Denver was still horse carriages and the Wild West. But when I saw the space I was wowed… really impressed. It was positioned in a great location, downtown, right next to the convention center, a lot of foot traffic, [and] great visibility.”
The surprise move helped put both Larimer Square and Denver on the map, and other restaurants soon joined the street. Jennifer Janinski’s Rioja and Bistro Vendome, Troy Guard’s TAG, and Frank Bonnano’s Osteria Marco all followed in its wake along the one-block stretch.
The Food
From the beginning, Sandoval’s restaurants all followed one unifying mission—to elevate Mexican cuisine to modern fine dining standards. That was a particularly challenging mission for Tex-Mex heavy Denver when Tamayo first opened.
“I always wanted to help people really understand my culture, my country, and what we do,” said Sandoval. “There’s a misrepresentation and disconnect with what people thought Mexico was and what Mexico really is. Little did I know that I was going to be able to be very impactful and change people’s vision of how they see Mexican food.”
Doing so requires a menu that strikes a delicate balance between challenging and safe. Over the course of its 25 years, Tamayo has fallen on both sides of that line, resulting in a somewhat love-hate relationship with restaurant critics as definitions of “modern” and “elevated” changed with the growing sophistication and expectations of Denver’s food scene.
Today, it faces competition from other restaurants with similar goals. Relative newcomers like Xiquita, Zocalito Latin Bistro, and the Michelin-starred Alma Fonda Fina are just a few other establishments also driving today’s modern Mexican renaissance.
But Tamayo has always responded, regularly changing up chefs and menus to remain current and relevant. That includes the space as well. This past March, it completed a three-month, half-million-dollar renovation (the second in the restaurant’s history) along with a new menu. True to form, there’s a little bit new, and a little bit familiar.
The new space is brighter and more open, with natural wood chairs, woven fabric booths, and fringed rattan chandeliers, the last of which, thankfully, mask the previously unsightly HVAC ducts that line the ceiling. But it also retains the large mosaic mural behind the bar inspired by the restaurant’s namesake, Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo.
The updated menu added such items as a marinated roasted salmon a la talla with mesquites and a braised pork shank with guava pipián mole. It also retained about 70% of old favorites including carne asada tacos and tacos al pastor.
With these upgrades, Sandoval hopes Denver diners will see the Tamayo as the “new kid on the block” again, which is especially necessary today now that the small culinary pond Tamayo made such a big splash in 25 years ago has since grown to a far more complicated and competitive food city.
The People
For that, Tamayo has only itself to blame. Many of the restaurants Tamayo now competes with were founded by chefs who got their start in Sandoval’s kitchen.
Carne owner chef Dana Chef Rodriguez, for instance, was hired at Tamayo after Casa Bonita turned her down when she first moved here from Mexico. Not only is she now Casa Bonita’s culinary director responsible for the iconic venue’s revamped menu, she also opened Carne, Work & Class, and Super Mega Bien as well.
Another notable alumni is chef Johnny Curiel, who started out in Tamayo’s kitchen before taking on stints at Troy Guard’s TAG, Boulder’s Centro, and eventually gaining a Michelin star with Alma Fonda Fina. In the last two years he also opened Mezcaleria Alma, Alteño, and Cozobi Fonda Fina in Boulder.
Most recent is chef Oscar Padilla, formerly of both Tamayo and sister restaurant Toro. Padilla went on to win Food Network’s Chopped cooking competition in 2023 and currently runs Gaucho Parrilla at Freedom Street Social in Arvada.
“I think a lot about my legacy now,” Sandoval said. “What am I going to leave behind? So I look at all these people that have been at Tamayo. They are very important to the Tamayo story.”
That legacy came together recently during a special dinner featuring Tamayo alumni Rodreguiz and Castillo, who along with Sandoval prepared a five-course tasting menu with paired cocktails dubbed, “Tamayo Through the Ages.”
The evening stood as a stark reminder that the kitchen can still bring the heat, both on the plate and behind the pass. From the yuzu-serrano crudo roulade opener with cucumber, avocado crema and carrot vinaigrette from chef Rodriguez, to chef Padilla’s bison birria crisp with a downright banging habanero salsa, to chef Sandoval’s Zarandeado prawns in plantain puree and mango pico de gallo, it’s clear that Tamayo remains true to an ongoing mission of challenging outdated Tex-Mex expectations of Mexican cuisine in Colorado.
The Business
For all of Sandoval’s reputation as a chef, one can’t discount his prowess as a businessman as an additional factor in Tamayo’s longevity. He’s equally obsessed with the numbers his restaurants produce as he is about the flavors they develop. And when the numbers don’t add up, he’s not afraid to make big changes.
For instance, Sandoval followed up on Tamayo’s success with Zengo and La Güera in another up-and-coming Denver location near Commons Park on Little Raven St. But as competition mounted, even renovations and menu changes couldn’t save them, and Sandoval ultimately closed them down.
“You’ve got to run it as a business,” Sandoval said. “You’ve got to manage the numbers, manage your costs. On a weekly basis, we understand what’s happening, how the needles are moving, and we make adjustments. So we’re very proactive in managing the business. I think that’s helped us.”
A Living Legacy
Although he may not say it outright, it’s hard to believe that Tamayo doesn’t sit above the dollars-and-cents fray of such business decisions. After all, Tamayo was the restaurant that brought him to Denver. The world headquarters of the vast Richard Sandoval Hospitality group is based in RiNo, where his own daughter works in marketing. Tamayo is not only synonymous with Larimer Square, it’s synonymous with Sandoval’s continued drive to change perceptions of his native land’s cuisine.
And as he enters the twilight of his career, Sandoval naturally looks to things like legacy and what he leaves behind. Tamayo is perhaps one of the largest and longest-lasting representations of that footprint, which places it above the considerations of mere accounting realities.
“Tamayo is a very special place for me,” he said. “It was the launching pad to my career… Denver is now one of the top food cities in the country. I’d like to say I was part of that evolution. My goal was always to be impactful, intentional, and really change people’s perception about Mexico. And I think I was able to put my grain of salt on that.”
Visit Tamayo Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. 1400 Larimer St., Denver, tamayodenver.com
Read our last entry into the #TBT series, all about Bastien’s and its iconic sugar steak.
