DJ's Berkeley Café, Denver

When 5280 magazine ran a feature on local chefs’ upscale versions of oatmeal, DJ's 9th Avenue Cafe was the first eatery mentioned. Unlike his peers’ signature concoctions, Chef Devin Stallings’s version pairs a plain portion of organic, irish steel-cut oats with servings of pistachios, dried dates, cranberries, brown sugar, and milk, which diners can add however they see fit. The laid-back, collaborative approach to cuisine is emblematic of Devin’s work at DJ's, which the Denver Post praises for “simple, thoughtfully prepared and relatively wholesome food.”

At breakfast, those wholesome dishes include crab-cake benedicts and french toast stuffed with peanut butter and jelly; a weekend brunch menu expands upon those offerings with housemade chicken pot pie. For lunch, Devin and his team smoke pork in-house before adding it to Cuban-style sandwiches with dijon mustard and sliced pickles, as well as grill half-pound, handmade burgers that diners can crown with their choice of toppings.