Italian · $$$ · since 2017
Tavernetta
The Frasca team's Italian, across from Union Station, with an all-afternoon bar.
Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Boulder's Frasca opened Tavernetta in September 2017 in the glass ground floor of the office building at 16th and Wewatta, directly across from Union Station. It is a Northern Italian dining room with the Frasca service culture, handmade pasta, a wood grill and an Italian wine list that regulars come for on its own. What makes it useful, not just good, is the bar and lounge, open all afternoon on weekdays for cicchetti and a glass, and the 3-to-6 happy hour. Valet is $15 at the Limelight next door with validation.
Why go. A proper Italian dinner or a solo bar-seat plate of pasta with a real wine list, thirty seconds from the train.
Weekday afternoons at the bar are the loophole; dinner reservations go on OpenTable and Friday and Saturday book out a week or more.
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