Konjo is part of the food hall lineup at Edgewater Public Market, offering Ethiopian cuisine alongside more typical pizzas, chicken sandwiches, crepes and ice cream. Despite the setting, Konjo's flavors are every bit as rich and complex as you find at the sit-down Ethiopian restaurants on East Colfax Avenue and along Havana Street, but dishes are served in a way that's easier to enjoy without committing to an hours-long meal. Choose from a veggie combo or chicken, beef or lamb tibs; each meal comes with rolls of injera flatbread.

Folks with a long memory and an adventurous streak for seeking out great food in Denver's hidden neighborhoods will remember when Cafe Brazil served South American cuisine from a ten-table eatery on Navajo Street in the 1990s before moving to its more spacious home in the early 2000s. The Zarlenga family's bold, fresh and flavorful interpretation of Brazilian cooking, tinged with influences from Colombia, Spain and even a little Italy, has been a bright spot in northwest Denver for more than twenty years. A visit is never complete without a sip or two of rum or cachaça from the bar's extensive collection.

The arepa is the quintessential Venezuelan street food, a fluffy, corn-flour pocket stuffed with all manner of meats, beans, veggies and sauces. Quiero Arepas makes its arepas big, then wraps them in paper for a filling meal on the go. Lighter appetites should start with La Original, with avocado, plantains and black beans. But our favorite is the Pabellon, a classic in Venezuela made with juicy shredded beef, black beans, plantains and cheese. Other combos come with salmon, ham and cheese, chicken salad and Cuban-style fillings, to name just a few. Quiero Arepas can also be found at Avanti Food & Beverage in Boulder and LoHi.

The homey pierogi got a modern makeover when Jeremy and Katherine Yurek opened their Polish eatery on a revitalized strip of East Colfax Avenue last year. The pierogi and other eats at Baba & Pop's are as comforting and satisfying as Grandma's best, but the ambience of the restaurant is a little hipper. Along with time-honored potato or sauerkraut versions, you'll find pierogi reimagined with chili relleno or pizza-style fillings, and there's even a pierogi poutine with housemade brown gravy. Cabbage rolls, kielbasa and sauerkraut soup further reinforce the Polish offering. At weekend brunch, things are a little less by-the-book, especially if you throw down $48 for the Buddy Mary, a 50-ounce Bloody Mary bristling with skewered fried chicken, sausage, bacon, cheese curds, pickled veggies and charred jalapeños. Baba and Pop would be shocked!

Ryan Fletter and Darrel Truett, the owner and chef of Barolo Grill, respectively, take care of their customers. That consideration starts from the moment you step up to the host station; if you've been more than once, you'll likely be greeted by name. Conversation begins almost immediately with your host, your server, your wine guide and often Fletter himself, who stops at every table to make sure diners are comfortable. The dedication continues into the kitchen, where Truett continues to innovate with the seasons rather than resting on Barolo's considerable reputation. The chef proves that Italian cuisine is as fluid and evolving as the wines aging in Fletter's cellar, and surprises await both in the bottle and on the plate.

Denver's neighborhood restaurants have been responsible for the invention of several dishes distinct to this town: the Mexican hamburger, the toro pot — and the Italian canoli. We're not talking about the dessert cannoli spelled with two n's, we're talking about the single-n savory canoli, a bready roll stuffed with Italian sausage or meatballs. Lechuga's, a Northside original, may not have invented the canoli, but it has perfected several variations as a prominent part of its menu. The most Denver of them all is the Little Devil, kicked up with a strip of roasted chile inside its golden-brown wrapper. You can get minis for just a couple of bucks apiece, super-sized versions or the Spanoli plate: two canoli smothered in sauce and sided with spaghetti or fat housemade noodles. The square-cut pizzas, baked pasta dishes and hot meatball sandwiches are also worth a visit. Holy canoli, it's all so good!

Fire is at the heart and soul of chef/owner Elise Wiggins's Italian restaurant in Central Park, so you'll get hints of smoke and char in everything from grilled oysters on the appetizer list to the cast-iron skillet pasticcio to mouthwatering steaks. Pizzas and flatbreads are baked in the wood-burning oven, too. From the right seat (which is nearly every seat in the house), you can watch the chefs ply their craft as the flames dance. And in the summer, you'll often see Wiggins and her team cooking up something good on the patio rotisserie.

Tucked into a quiet, brick-lined grotto off Larimer Square, Bistro Vendôme checks all the boxes for what French restaurants have come to represent: It feels like a secret you discovered while traveling, it comes complete with gilt window signs and cozy cafe seating, and it offers a menu of instantly recognizable French classics. The fact that all of those classics are well executed is important, too; no French eatery worth its sel de mer could earn its fleurs de lis without being able to turn out pitch-perfect duck confit, steak frites and buttery mussels and escargot every time. And that's exactly what you'll get at Bistro Vendôme.

When Brasserie Brixton opened in the Cole neighborhood last summer, it was one of the most exciting French restaurants to come along in quite some time. But as COVID-based restrictions made dining in the restaurant more difficult, founder Justin Morse realized the brasserie's menu wasn't suited for takeout or delivery. So he installed a wood-burning pizza oven and began turning out square pies under the name Le Brix Pizza, and the neighbors loved it. Once springtime arrived, Morse reopened the dining room and relaunched the eclectic French menu that comprises blood-sausage wontons as well as French onion soup, pork-belly gougères and mussels in broth. At Brasserie Brixton, it's great to be French again.

When chef Alon Shaya opened Safta in 2018, he made us rethink hummus and falafel. No longer the stuff of cheap and satisfying college takeout meals, as executed at Safta, these dishes rise to the level they deserve in the canon of world cuisine. Shaya made us not only appreciate the standards, but introduced us to Israeli dishes rarely seen before in Denver. We murmured words like muhammara, lutenitsa and chermoula while appreciating generous drizzles of olive oil and hearth-baked pita so inflated they threatened to float away. Safta continues to impress with an ever-changing and seasonal lineup of small plates and family-sized dishes that somehow all stay grounded in a grandmother's simple style.