5280 Magazine – August 2019

Sa

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)

MORIN

1600 15th St.

303-623-0534

morindenver.com

THE DRAW:

French dishes

with a contem-

porary touch,

plus a deep list of

natural wines

THE DRAWBACK:

Uneven execution

NOISE LEVEL:

Modest

DON’T MISS:

Chef’s tasting

menu, tartare,

fresh fish entrées,

potato beignets,

desserts, wines

French Twist

At Morin, inconsistency mars what is otherwise an exciting

and modern dining experience.

T

he venerable Wazee Supper Club on 15th Street in LoDo was transformed last fall,

after a substantial makeover, into Morin, a French restaurant from prolific restaura-

teur Juan Padro and chef-partner Max MacKissock. They’re part of the team behind

LoHi’s Señor Bear and Bar Dough, both of which I like a lot. But unlike Pan-Latin

Bear and jazzy Italian café Dough, Morin isn’t an easy restaurant to decode.

To start, Morin’s dining room avoids Gallic gestures. My first impression put

it more in the company of other bar-and-grill-ish places that hustle for foot traffic in the

Union Station area: There are high windows, leather banquets, the inevitable brick and

wood accents with an open ceiling and black ductwork, and a groovy soundtrack. Appar-

ently, the huge sculptural object suspended above the racetrack-shaped bar represents an

inverted Mont Blanc in the French Alps, though to me, from below, it resembles the ribs of

a sunken galleon or perhaps a Brobdingnagian whalebone girdle.

Which means you can walk into Morin without a clue that you’ll be eating “super dope

French food,” as its Instagram bio promises, that “plays at the intersection of contemporary

cuisine and traditional French technique,” as its website promises. Crack the menu, though,

and the dishes are resolutely titled in French: “poulet au vin jaune,” “pain au lait,” “carrot

salade” (well, that last

one is Franglais). The

drift is toward retooled

country comfort rather

than Michelin-star

tweezered fussifica-

tion (thank goodness),

so, at Morin, you’ll be

eating beef marrow

custard, radishes with

butter, and potatoes

au gratin. Caviar, foie

gras, and truffles are

offered as supplements,

like upgrades on a

Peugeot. Modern notes

are sounded but not

fetishized—there’s

egg yolk confit and

whey caramel—and

there are occasional

international inflec-

tions, such as roti

with lamb tartare.

BY SCOTT MOWBRAY

& REVIEW

From left: A view

of Morin’s dining

room from the

mezzanine;

halibut with yuzu

62 |^5280 |^ AUGUST^2019