The People Behind the Plates

Maya cooked in San Francisco and Chicago kitchens for a decade before coming home to Colorado with a notebook full of farm names and a conviction that Denver didn't need another restaurant with a view — it needed one with a neighborhood. She opened The Juniper Table three blocks from the house she grew up in.

She still works the pass Thursday through Saturday, writes the menu weekly, and answers the phone during prep more often than the staff would like.

Sam built the bar program around a stubborn idea: Colorado distills world-class spirits, and a restaurant named after a gin botanical should prove it. The result is the Front Range's deepest local gin list and a zero-proof program treated with the same seriousness as the spirits.

If you sit at the bar and can't decide, say 'dealer's choice' and tell him one thing you had for breakfast. It works.