Can you spell “dine” without the city of Denver?
Can you order outside of Boulder or après beyond Aspen?
For Colorado chefs the answer is and has been, of course, but in the high-stakes, low-margin world of restaurants it helps to get some outside recognition and perhaps no recognition is greater than the famed Michelin Guide.
Matthew Schniper, who runs the Colorado Springs-based Substack, Side Dish with Schniper, said the Michelin expansion is not the result of some epiphany about the state’s other dining options, but about an intense effort to boost local economies.
“This is really all about economic development. They want to extend visitor stays in the community and they want to have those visitors who stay spend money and Michelin brings a higher-end clientele to places,” Schniper said.
Before last week’s announcement, the guide only considered Denver, Boulder, Aspen, Snowmass, Vail and Beaver Creek. The 2026 version of the guide will be the first to evaluate restaurants statewide. Schniper said for a town like Colorado Springs, the Michelin Guide could help shake preconceived notions about preferences for mass-market dining options.
“This is about independents versus chains. We have to break the chain here. We have to stop being an In-N-Out market and Michelin coming and creating a new dialogue around food in this city could be part of that,” Schniper said.
Earning the famed Michelin star is a tall order on first pass, but Schniper said that need not be the goal for communities now under consideration by the guide. In addition to the star awards, the Michelin Guide assigns Bib Gourmand and Recommended designations to qualifying restaurants, both of which are still big deals in their own right.
“I personally think (Colorado Springs is) almost certain to get something on the recommended list. How could we not?” Schniper said. “We might get a Bib Gourmand. That'd be fantastic. We could get a star. I will be surprised if in year one we do, I think Denver didn't even get a lot of stars in year one.”
The simmering food scene on Colorado’s Western Slope
Even without a Michelin nod, the right kind of industry recognition can be big for a restaurant.
Grand Junction chef Josh Niernberg is a multi-time James Beard award semifinalist, including this year in the outstanding chef category. One of his establishments, Bin 707 Foodbar, was listed in the New York Times’ list of 50 best restaurants for 2025.
National recognition does pay dividends for smaller restaurants, Niernberg said, particularly when it comes at slower periods of the year. He said making the Times list led to “the biggest change I think I'd ever seen from any media we've ever received.”
“It was as though somebody flipped a light switch. It was floodgates for three months straight,” Niernberg said.
Niernberg doesn’t know if Bin 707 or his other restaurant, Taco Party, fit in the target zone for Michelin recognition and he’s not about to change things to figure out if they can. That’s because he wants his eateries to thread the needle between a neighborhood mainstay and a special occasion restaurant.
“Regardless of if a Michelin comes or does not come, or we're evaluated, we're awarded or not, at the end of the day, we need to make sure that our local customer base is able to still remain accessible to the restaurant and what have you,” he said.
High Country Hopes for Breckenridge Chef Matt Vawter
Summit County restaurateur Matt Vawter is the chef behind Breckenridge's Rootstalk and Radicato. He also recently added a bakery to the catalogue, Threefold. Vawter is obsessive about ingredients and his relationships with the growers who supply his restaurants. That was easier when he was operating out of Denver. When he moved to Breckenridge during the pandemic, he needed to work a little harder for his beloved locally-sourced ingredients.
“When I came up here, all those people were like, we love you, Matt, but it's too far. And so that was the first challenge in trying to find farmers and producers that would work with us,” Vawter said.
In Breckenridge he started sourcing from Western Slope growers and forged new pipelines to supply his restaurants with the ingredients he needed.
“When you talk about the food scene and growth, I think that's probably what I'm most proud of, is bringing that food that is being grown and produced in our state into Breckenridge,” he said.
Now, the pageantry of a Michelin inspection is making its way to Breckenridge the same way the produce did. Vawter has no idea if one of his restaurants will see an inspection this year, but he welcomes the attention, even if he doesn’t plan on changing anything because of it.
“I want to run a great business that provides for the community. I want to serve great food for our community. I want to serve great food for our visitors,” Vawter said. But as for the coveted Michelin star, “That isn't the reason we do what we do and certainly doesn't dictate the way we're going to do things, either. We just want to do what we think is right and run the best business we can.”
