Restaurants in Golden

Though the interior of the Sherpa House Restaurant is fragrant with the smells of naan bread and spiced curries, this tantalizing cuisine is only part of the eatery's allure. The space itself functions something like a museum, except that visitors can actually take a seat and speak above a whisper. Built as a reproduction of a traditional Sherpa house in Nepal, the restaurant seats diners in a family room with a kitchen, in a buffet room beneath a thatched roof, or on a patio perched beneath waving flags. A shrine room, photo gallery, and museum room with traditional artifacts afford more in-depth peeks at the rich culture and history of the Sherpa people, who are widely known for their mountaineering skills.

Behind the scenes, chefs work carefully to make sure that their entrees accurately capture the seasonings and healthfulness that Nepal's cuisine is known for. Cumin, garlic, tomatoes, and ginger spice up pieces of beef, lamb, whitefish, and yak. Naan bread, which they bake in a clay oven and cool on a windowsill atop Mount Everest, soaks up savory pools of curry, stew, and daal bhat. Desserts include kheer, a Nepali rice pudding, and sweet lassi, a drink blended with yogurt, rose water, and sugar.

The city lights of Denver twinkle in the distance from Mount Vernon Country Club, a 90-year-old private club that is not only proud of its picturesque views from atop Lookout Mountain—which also include the Genesee Mountain and the snowcapped Rocky Mountains—but of the activities it affords both members and guests. Making membership even more affordable due to their lack of a golf course on the grounds, Mount Vernon Country Club is not just your average country club. Members are welcome to enjoy the main dining room and Fireside Lounge’s menus of savory steaks and seasoned seafood dishes, or to dig into the weekly king-crab buffet and weekend brunch. On Friday and Saturday nights, the Fireside Lounge keeps diners entertained with live music, which has included past jazz performances by Kenny Barron, Billy Higgins, and the Fort Apache Band.

Along with a bounty of savory cuisine, Mount Vernon Country Club also offers a variety of indoor and outdoor activities. Members can splash around the club’s 25-yard outdoor pool—complete with tube slide and poolside restaurant—or swing rackets day or night at three clay and three hard-court tennis courts. Though the club's original golf course was converted into a water resource and lost-ball orphanage decades ago, members can still swing and putt amid the manicured greens at Evergreen and Raccoon Creek golf courses for a discounted rate.

To keep Mount Vernon Country Club in tip-top shape, the club has undergone remodeling and updating through the years, which has included the addition of banquet halls and an exercise facility. The curvy bar and contemporary chandeliers give the almost-century-old establishment a modern feel, while the grand wood- and stonework still exude the club’s authentic, rustic-cabin charm.

The lively neighborhood of Curtis Park bustles around them, but the diners on La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant's patio move leisurely, taking their time to savor the flavors of red and green chilies and sip margaritas beneath the sun. The scene at this local-loved restaurant has been very much the same since founder Michael W. Herrera and his family first opened the restaurant's doors 50 years and 12 generations of typewriter ago. Since then, the family and their kitchen crew have earned praise and admiration from numerous media publications—including Denver Westword's award for Best Colorado-Style Mexican Restaurant—for their tangy green chili, plump chili rellenos, and hearty pork chili Caribe. Flush with neon lights, the expansive dining room abounds with cushy orange booths and a large number of tables, making it an ideal venue for friends to gather but a frustrating venue for learning to ride a bike without training wheels.

With owners transplanted from the Emerald Isle, Katie Mullen's Irish Restaurant and Bar is riddled with authentic Irish flourishes. The furniture, for example, was all imported from Nugent and Gibney Ltd in Ireland. Up to 500 people gather around the hand-carved tables, feasting on Icelandic cod battered with Harp Lager and burgers crowned with corned beef. Kathleen St. John of the Denver Post notes that the selection of food stands out among a sea of Irish pubs: “Katie Mullen's menu is intensely Irish, but that doesn't mean bland corned beef and cabbage.” In the kitchen, chefs combine diced lamb, veal demi-glace, and fresh herbs in slowly roiling pots of irish stew.

The fare fills the 11,500-square-foot interior with revelry, the clatter of silverware reverberating through four themed rooms: the Victorian bar, the Shop bar, the Pharmacy bar, and the Gaelic bar. Lights dangle from marbled and copper-paneled ceilings, and dark-wood and stone accents surround diners in each room. The same stonework, along with curlicues of wrought iron, warms in the sun around the large outdoor patio. On the weekends, live musicians strum their guitars and rock through ballads about how many pairs of sunglasses you should be wearing.