SUBSCRIBE NOW
GIVE A GIFT

DINING GUIDE

Select Cuisine --- American Asian Barbecue Breakfast Cajun/Southern Caribbean Contemporary Deli Ethiopian French Fusion Health Indian International Italian Latin American Mediterranean Mexican Middle Eastern Pizza Pub Seafood Southwestern Steak House Select Neighborhood --- Downtown Cherry Creek Central Denver Boulder Southeast Metro Southwest Metro Northwest Metro Northeast Metro

Advanced Search

TOP DOCTORS

Click here for our 2009 list, with 283 Denver doctors in 83 medical specialties. It's our biggest, most comprehensive Top Docs feature yet.

NEWSLETTERS

Sign up for 5280's weekly e-newsletters. Want the latest restaurant scoop? The latest happenings around town? Access to exclusive events and deals just for 5280 readers? Sign up today for our great 5280 email newsletters and you'll be in the know all week long.

TALK TO 5280

Tell us about it. Give us your restaurant feedback or submit your event for our online and printed calendar.

JOBS

Find out more.

Rustico Ristorante
Authentic Italian in Telluride.
By Shari Caudron
June 2008

It's 9:30 on a Friday night and I've just finished a plate of sausage risotto, accidentally ordered a second bottle of wine (it's a half-bottle, if you must know), and I think I'm in love with my three servers.

For the last two hours, they've helped two of us expertly navigate Rustico's 75-dish menu. They told us we would love the carpaccio di vitello e aragosta ($14.50), thin strips of raw veal tenderloin and earthy truffle oil offset by the cool sea taste of lobster. They were right.

Chef-owner Paolo Canclini, a fifth-generation restaurateur, landed in Telluride 12 years ago, aiming to create a casual restaurant that evoked the simple style and fresh flavors of the food he grew up with in the Valtellina region of the Italian Alps—and he's succeeded.

Rustico's menu draws a refreshingly mixed crowd: cyclists looking for beer and pizza at the bar, teenage locals signing for fettuccine on daddy's expense account, and investment bankers craving a $65 beef tenderloin filet from Ralph Lauren's nearby ranch. Time it just right and you might also catch a Cruise or a Spielberg or a Lucas relaxing in the restaurant's enclosed veranda, dining in the stone-walled villa room, or sipping a Sangiovese in front of the fireplace. Speaking of which, Rustico's 1,500-label wine list is 100 percent Italian and 200 percent seductive, especially the Valtellina Superiore Corte della Meridiana ($86), a deep and elegant Nebbiolo from the Conti Sertoli Solis estate.

But it's not my fault. Really. It's these darn waiters and their impossibly friendly manner who've made me want to linger at Rustico long into the Telluride night. Or at least until the wine—and the tiramisù they talked me into—are finished. 114 E. Colorado Ave., Telluride, 970-728-4046, www.rusticoristorante.com

 Save to del.ico.us

ADVERTISING