Denver commercial development plans revealed that high-end Southern cooking from the Church & Union Restaurant is coming to the downtown Union Station neighborhood at 1433 17th St. Recognized for an impressive chef-driven menu, the sophisticated ambiance in Church & Union restaurants is almost worth a visit in itself.
Church & Union’s New American cuisine is a team effort from Top Chef alum and restaurant partner Jamie Lynch and executive chef Tyler Cook. The pair has carved prix fixe menus for the restaurant in locations throughout the southern United States. Owned and operated by the 5th Street Group, the refined restaurant concept finds a home at Tempest Charleston, Church & Union Charlotte, La Belle Helene Charlotte, Church & Union Nashville, and Church & Union Charleston, located on downtown’s historic Market Street in the coastal South Carolina city first founded in 1670.
Menu items are a mix of light and hearty. First course options might include tater tots and caviar, braised bacon and melon, fried green tomatoes, and roasted beet salad. Entrees feature a range of decadent meats, carbs, and veggies: Koji swordfish with aji verde, papas bravas, haricot verts, tomato relish, Anolini pasta stuffed with burrata cheese, tomato, butternut squash, basil, and chicken sausage, and a burger with truffle cheese, mushroom duxelles, caramelized onions, truffle aioli, hand-cut French fries. Even dessert is a rich, vibrant mix of flavors. Take the Sweet Home Caroline, which offers a flourless chocolate cake, topped with peanut butter cream, chocolate crémeux, toasted meringue, and salted peanuts.
Eating in a Church & Union usually means an elevated dining experience in tasteful, thought-provoking surroundings. Inside Church & Union Nashville, for example, paintings and art cover the walls while the ceiling boasts all 11,450 words of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” hand painted by Charlotte-area artist Jon Norris, per The Tennessean. In Charleston, the restaurant sits under the stained glass windows of a renovated church. And in Charlotte, a white bar rail and light wood floors accompany a bursting chandelier and feathered lights above the bar to bring a bright ambiance to mural walls.
There’s no word yet on when the new Church & Union restaurant will open, what it will be named in Denver, or what the intriguing decor might look like.
