The Truth and Love about Annette

We asked every restaurant in Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery to complete a survey detailing their passions, processes and philosophy. Discover more of our restaurants’ stories in their own words.

• WHO: Caroline Glover, chef/owner
• WHAT: A seasonally-driven, wood-fired restaurant serving family-style shared plates
• WHERE: 2501 Dallas Street, Suite 108, Aurora, Colorado 80010, USA

When it comes to your restaurant or establishment, what are you most passionate about?

“I founded Annette to create great food for our guests and take care of them. We strive to treat guests at Annette like they are guests in our home. I want my food to be the centerpiece of a truly special dining experience, and to me that means great conversation with good friends in a beautiful ambience over delicious food. I want my food to be comforting and tasty, but ideally it will also be thought-provoking. After working on farms for a few years (a welcome change from the frenetic pace of kitchen life in New York City) I realized that many diners are disconnected from their food; from where it comes from, how it’s produced, and what that involves. They’re also disconnected from the people who grow it for them, and those are some of the most dedicated and hardworking people around. I want my guests to be reminded that when you’re starting with high-quality ingredients produced with the best practices in mind, it doesn’t take much more than a little salt and acidity to turn them into something delicious. In addition to nourishing and satisfying guests, I also want to start a conversation with them.”

There are many different ways to practice sustainability and integrity in hospitality. Give us some examples of an action or principle that is important to you.

Locality: “Our menu definitely rolls with the seasons, and we source as much as we can from farms, ranches and producers in Colorado. Being in Colorado does mean that we have to look a bit further afield for some produce during the late fall, winter and early spring. But this summer (in addition to growing as much as we can in our own backyard!) we’re partnering with Delaney Community Farm, a farm in Aurora that’s part of Project Worthmore, a wonderful non-profit that works to resettle refugees in the Denver Metro Area.

“Delaney Farm will provide us with a weekly farm share, but they’re also growing seven plant varieties for us from Dan Barber’s seed company Row 7 Seeds, which were bred for delicious flavor above all else. We’ll feature this produce on our summer menu, and at summer’s end we hope to host a harvest dinner with the refugees that run Delaney Community Farm, featuring Row 7 produce.

“We also get a weekly produce delivery from the Dahlia Campus for Health and Well Being, a project of the Mental Health Center of Denver where patients are taught to grow food as part of their treatment. And since we opened we’ve sourced produce from the GrowHaus, a year-round Denver-based producer of greens and other veggies that’s also home to a community education center and grocery store in one of Denver’s poorest neighborhoods. Finally, we work with a local produce distributor called FreshGuys that often sources vegetables like potatoes, beets, herbs and greens from Colorado farms. In the months of June, July, August, and September we visit the Cherry Creek Farmers’ Market every Wednesday to gather produce and fresh flowers for the restaurant.”

Sustainability: “We do our best at Annette to avoid food waste as much as possible. We receive deliveries of Mary’s chickens twice a week. We use all the livers from the chickens to make paté and all of the necks and bones to make various stocks throughout the week. We also get in two sides of pork a week from my sous chef’s family farm. We utilize every single piece of the pork (bones for stocks, tenderloins for specials, chops, and loins for sandwiches on our brunch menu). We are moving to be a straw-free establishment as well, and are looking into using straws made out of corn starch. We are also moving to using reusable metal swizzle sticks for specific cocktails. When the restaurant is closed on Sunday nights and Mondays we have a system that cuts off all heating, cooling and lighting while the space is not in use.”

Environmental impact: “We use a company called Sea to Table that sources seafood responsibly and domestically. We have a whole fish on the menu that changes based on Sea to Table’s availability. In the summer, we are lucky enough to get some produce from an avid backyard gardener who lives nine miles from Annette. She provides us with basil, fairytale eggplant, 8 ball zucchini, nasturtiums, green and wax beans, lemon balm and whatever else she has a surplus of each week. We only have two dishes with red meat. One of the dishes can only be found on our happy hour menu (steak frites) and the other is beef tongue on the dinner menu, coming from a farm in Hotchkiss (western Colorado) called 7X Beef. We try to guide our guests to eat more vegetables, seafood, pork and chicken.”

To read more about Annette, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.