Denver's Best Japanese Restaurant

BEST JAPANESE: Domo

1365 Osage Street

Denver, CO 80204

Phone: 303-595-3666

This category is furthest and away the most lopsided. There is no more obvious owner of this award than Domo.

Not that I care what other reviewers think, but not only have Domo won the title of Westword's best Japanese restaurant for 12 years running, but Zagat voted them the #1 Japanese restaurant in the USA for 2008.

Domo is the real deal. If there's one restaurant in Denver that makes you say, "We're just a dusty cow town, and we don't deserve to have a restaurant like this here," Domo is it. The truth is we don't deserve to have them here.

The place is beautiful with manicured gardens and the dining room furniture consisting of logs for seats and stone slabs for tables. The food is Japanese country-style, what woud be peasant fare in old Nippon, but done here to perfection, with ingredients flown in from Japan. Domo is a true gem, don't miss it.

What to order: you can't go wrong. Most of the dishes are country style broths and stews where you select the meat and ingredients. I liked the Chicken Dumpling Nabemono. And all dishes come with 7 authentic country dishes prepared by the chef, small plates of strange and exotic ingredients.