Restaurants in Golden

Within a rustic interior, the chefs at Cactus Jack’s Saloon craft a menu's worth of casual pub eats, including burgers made from locally acquired ingredients. Outside, on an expansive, sunny deck with rows of picnic tables, servers transport patties made from all-natural Anderson beef and topped with a range of fixings, such as the Red Hot Mama’s matronly jalapeños. The tavern hosts frequent events on its creek-side stage, such as live music, duet karaoke, and open-mic nights.

At Toppings and More, an elegant trifecta meets: hot dogs, frozen yogurt, and bar drinks. As the name might imply, a huge list of toppings is available to pile over local, all-natural frozen yogurt. Hot dogs pile on top of local breads, carrying creative combinations of wasabi mayo and pickled ginger, or macaroni and cheese. Meanwhile, drinks quench palates with specialty cocktails and beers.

A farm-to-table philosophy endows the menu of indulgent steaks, lamb lollipops, and duck-fat potatoes at CY Steak with a slight aftertaste of virtue. Three kinds of house-cured bacon mingle with Kobe beef and oysters, slabs of grass-fed Harris Ranch beef await steak knives, and Ecuadorean chocolate from small, ecologically sound farms melts into puddings and brownies. The wine and mixology program verges almost on fussiness: alongside complex cocktails and a 500-bottle-deep wine selection, a Cruvinet wine-tapping system keeps a shortlist of the most of-the-moment potions ready at hand. Beneath soft red lighting designed to create a comprehensively sensual atmosphere, crystal glasses and egyptian-cotton napkins make for place settings as luxurious as a remote-controlled caviar dispenser. Among the pleasure palace's other indulgences are a cigar selection curated by the owner's tobacconist son and, most eye-catchingly, late-night cabaret entertainment that sends elegantly saucy dancers shimmying before adult eyes.