The Next Danny Meyer?

My first taste of Oceanaire was also impressive. Beyond the pure, stunning volume of incredibly fresh and expertly prepared sea critters I consumed while at table, there was one dish in particular that will soon be carved in bas relief on my tombstone: a bacon steak. Three bacon steaks, actually, beautifully marbled, fatty, each cut about three-quarters of an inch thick, fired in the pan, laid out in a row on a single plate, then served with a little bit of parsley and a really sharp knife. It's the ultimate indulgence, as deadly as it is delicious, and when it was brought to me, I was pretty sure I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

Amazingly, most of chef Matthew Mine's menu is like that. Not made out of bacon (I wish...), but original, indulgent, well thought-out and capable of haunting your dreams. There are unbelievably good chicken-fried oysters in homemade sausage gravy (Mine makes not just the gravy by hand, but the sausage, too) served over a respectable Southern-style biscuit and enormous, icy plateaus de fruits de mer covered in shrimp and oysters, mussels, crab and lobster. Each daily menu has the day's fresh fish plainly marked, but honestly? I was so hung up on the apps and sides, I never made it to the entrees.

Leftovers: After a wild ride, Duy Pham has landed — for now, at least — at Aqua (925 Lincoln Street), where he is currently on the books as chef, general manager and partner, of all things, with owner Jay Chadrom. Just a month ago, Pham was hunting for a spot where he could put a new restaurant with a new concept — and no partners ("Space Case," July 5). "I always thought finding the money would be the hard part about opening your own restaurant," Pham says. "I never thought finding the space would be the hard part."

But it was, and Pham needed work while he was looking, so he wound up returning to Ninth and Lincoln, the site of one of his biggest successes (Opal, also owned by Chadrom and one of the best restaurants in Denver when Pham was the chef there several years ago) and worst failures (Aqua, which was born out of a concept he'd worked on with Chadrom). After just two weeks at Aqua, Pham has a new menu in place and a new crew on the floor (mostly from Kyoto, Pham's former restaurant that just became Eric Roeder's Table Mesa). There still isn't a kitchen — one of the main problems when I trashed Aqua ("On Ice," June 7) — but behind the central bar that serves as a kitchen, you'll find Pham and his right-hand man, sous chef Mario Olabera.

Pham says Chadrom offered him a deal he couldn't refuse: money and title plus a "huge" sweat-equity partnership. "It is my restaurant now," Pham insists. "It was my last resort, to be quite honest with you. But it was my concept. I felt bad it got the review it did. Not to say it didn't deserve it, but I felt bad. I kinda bailed out on him and let him suffer. Now, I want to fix it."

To find out how Pham is doing, check out Second Helping.