Stock Your Freezer With These 15 Locally Made Products

“It’s not an overstatement to say that ChoLon is locally famous specifically for executive chef Lon Symensma’s French onion soup dumplings, each one a mouthful of brothy joy. Dumpling maven Michelle Xiao, who joined the team in 2019, is now crafting them—as well as potstickers and bao—for at-home cooking. Symensma’s video tutorials are your sous chef, and ChoLon sells steamers ($12) too.”

Stock Your Freezer With These 15 Locally Made Products

 

Where to Get the Best Dumplings in Denver

“Chef/owner Lon Symensma has been serving up his take on Asian cuisine using French techniques at the original Cholon location in downtown Denver for a decade.This Denver culinary favorite now has two locations, and lucky for us, both serve one of the Mile High’s long standing favorites: French onion soup dumplings filled with piping hot sherry-infused broth, sweet caramelized onions, and, of course, melty Gruyère cheese goodness.”

Where to Get the Best Dumplings in Denver

 

New Restaurants and Reopened Classics Doing Takeout Right Now

“ChoLon has reopened both its downtown and Stapleton locations for carryout, meaning all the French onion soup dumplings, stir-fried Malaysian noodles, and chicken potstickers you’ve been longing for are available.”

New Restaurants and Reopened Classics Doing Takeout Right Now

 

Stapleton Lucks Out with Second ChoLon Location

“If you’ve ever dined at nine-year-old ChoLon, situated in LoDo at the corner of Blake Street and the 16th Street Mall, you know it’s a glam, buzzy restaurant serving creative Pan-Asian fare from chef-owner Lon Symensma (also of Cho77 and LeRoux) and executive chef Becca Henry. As of two weeks ago, ChoLon is also a glam, buzzy restaurant in Stapleton’s Eastbridge Town Center, which means that if you live north or east of downtown, your commute for Symensma and Henry’s cooking just got a whole lot shorter.”

Stapleton Lucks Out with Second ChoLon Location

 

The Fifteen Best New Denver Restaurants of 2019

ChoLon Stapleton – “Chef/restaurateur Lon Symensma’s original ChoLon Modern Asian on the 16th Street Mall continues to be one of Denver’s top dining destinations, and now the inventive pan-Asian menu — or the best parts of it — are being served in Stapleton, along with a whole range of family-friendly new dishes built for the neighborhood. So longtime fans will still be able to indulge in the French onion soup dumplings, but a new roster of other dumplings is also available, as well as Singaporean crab cakes, pineapple fried rice and braised beef coconut curry. It’s all enough to make downtown denizens jealous.”

LeRoux – “Lon Symensma’s French/European bistro technically opened on December 28, 2018, too late to make our list of the twelve best new restaurants last year. But we won’t begrudge the chef/restaurateur those few extra days of practice before LeRoux became one of the brightest stars of 2019. Dazzling plates, from the mushroom mille-feuille, which presents a rectangle of mushrooms sliced so thin that they resemble the pages of a book, to the wagyu beef tartare, presented beneath a smoke-filled glass cloche, have become signature items, while duck, lamb and seafood go through seasonal variations. A tribute to the chef’s mentors in his younger days, LeRoux proves that the onetime student of European cuisine has now become the master.”

The Fifteen Best New Denver Restaurants of 2019

This Chef Brought Her Dumpling Skills From China to New York to ChoLon

“‘Michelle is one of the best dim sum chefs in the country,’ notes Lon Symensma, chef/owner of ChoLon and a longtime colleague of Xiao. They met when Symensma was hired as executive chef to open Steven Starr’s Buddakan, his jaw-dropping Asian restaurant in New York City, and Xiao was second in command on a twelve-person dim sum brigade.”

This Chef Brought Her Dumpling Skills From China to New York to ChoLon

A Comprehensive List of the Women Leading the Front Range Culinary Scene

From running restaurant kitchens to brewing Coloradans’ favorite craft beers, women are leading in all facets of the Front Range’s exciting dining scene—and driving its success. In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, we hope this list will make it easy for you to find and support female-owned and -operated establishments from Aurora to Boulder and beyond.

ChoLon Restaurant Concepts (ChoLon, Cho77, LeRoux): Dani Craig, general manager; Becca Henry, ChoLon chef de cuisine; Ashley Adams, ChoLon lead bartender

A Comprehensive List of the Women Leading the Front Range Culinary Scene

Denver’s 17 Most Iconic Dishes

“The first of Chef Lon Symensma’s fleet of local restaurants is now famous for its delicate steamed dumplings — a Chinese tradition, in this instance encasing cheesy French onion soup with a sherry-infused broth.”

Denver’s 17 Most Iconic Dishes

 

In the Kitchen with Lon Symensma

“Lon Symensma is a busy man these days. This past month alone, Symensma played musical restaurants, shuffling the three-year-old Cho77 out of its Broadway digs and replacing it with south-of-the-border restaurant, BorraCho Tacos. But worry not Cho77 fans—the street Asian food concept will soon reside next to its sister restaurant, ChoLon Modern Asian Bistro, later this winter. Speaking of ChoLon, the LoDo restaurant marked eight years in business this past October, celebrating with an all-out bash replete with endless bites and libations.”

In the Kitchen with Lon Symensma

Conde Nast - 22 Best Restaurants in Denver

“The moment you step foot into ChoLon’s dining room, you grow a little taller, get a little better-looking, and suddenly have a little more money. At least that’s what it feels like, as the high ceilings, giant windows, massive concrete pillars, marble floors, and sleek banquettes come together to create an aura of sophistication and privilege. It’s a nice feeling while it lasts. Better still is chef-owner Lon Symensma’s exuberant menu, inspired by the market goods and street foods of Southeast Asia. There’s a yin-and-yang energy to Symensma’s food, a wonderful tension between the earthy and the ethereal that you can taste for yourself when you order (and you will) what may be his two greatest hits, both umami bombs: the French onion soup dumplings and an elevated take on Singaporean kaya toast that comes with a frothy “egg cloud” for dipping.”

Conde Nast – 22 Best Restaurants in Denver