Barely 30 miles northwest of Aspen, in the shadow of the majestic Elk
Mountains, tiny Carbondale is becoming Colorado’s most exciting
summer destination.
True, the town has more family-owned cattle ranches than Michelin
stars, and there are still more farm stands than white tablecloth spots.
The restaurant best poised to elevate the town’s status doesn’t even
have a proper dining room.
Instead, at the Guest House, French Laundry alumna Seth O’Donovan
serves her experimental farm dinners outdoors, usually next to a horse
paddock or in a roomy tree house that surveys 1,200 acres of pristine
Colorado pastures. Meals include savory links of deer sausage served
with soft, house-made cheese and a mind-bending dessert of carrots with
butter and cinnamon, cooked to the point where they almost resemble pie
filling.
Those who come for her experimental, starlit dinners can roll into an
assortment of rustic cabins on the property, many of which date back to
the 1940s. In two years, O’Donovan aims to turn the main house on her
property into a five-star, eight-room hotel.
Some of Aspen’s best chefs are catching on. Down on Main Street, a new
izakaya is soon to be opened by Aspen sushi master Kenichi Kanada. Down
the same road, Mladen Todorovic and Kyle Raymond, two transplants from
Aspen’s seafood-centric Grey Lady and brunch favorite Over Easy—are
collaborating on Roosters, which will soon serve crepes in the morning
and rotisserie-based entrees by night. “The produce that we can get in
the summer in Colorado is amazing. We want to accentuate that,” Raymond
told the Sopris Sun, a Carbondale newsweekly.
