speakeasy · $$$ · since 2011
Williams & Graham
Enter through a bookcase; they only open it when a seat exists
The bar that reset Denver's cocktail expectations when it opened in 2011. You walk into a small bookshop on Tejon, and the bookcase only swings open when there is a seat for your whole party, which is why the room never gets crowded around you. The list runs to more than sixty classics alongside originals, and the back bar holds over five hundred bottles. James Beard has nominated the beverage program; Westword keeps naming it best cocktail bar. Reservations are recommended and they ask you to hold two hours.
Why go. Fifteen years on, it is still the most disciplined bar in the city.
Book online, and if you walk in, do it right at 5pm on a Sunday through Thursday; weekends without a reservation are a long wait.
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