100 Favorite Dishes: Seafood soup from Farro

Lori Midson

No. 94: Seafood soup from Farro

Matthew Franklin spent nearly eighteen years hunched over the burners at 240 Union, elevating that restaurant to easily the best feedlot on the west side of town -- and part of what made 240 Union such a smash hit was Franklin's unassailable mad talents with fish.

Franklin left 240 Union several years ago to open Farro, an Italian-inspired restaurant in Littleton, where he continues to turn out terrific dishes, including several that dance with seafood and fish. In fact, his seafood soup is a sensational swamp of garlic-scented, herb-flecked tomato broth bombarded with calamari, pudgy shrimp mussels, clams and whatever else he has docked in his kitchen. And because Franklin is especially gifted at bouncing flavors off one another, he lobs rings of jalapeños in there for good measure, which gives the soup a mildly searing, transforming boost.

Hungry for more? All the dishes in our countdown are linked below:

No. 100: Italian wedding soup from the Squeaky Bean
No. 99: American Classic Burger (and fries) from Tarbell's
No. 98: E's clam linguini from Mangiamo Pronto
No. 97: Queso a la plancha taco from the Pinche Tacos wagon
No. 96: Prosciutto-wrapped jalapeño poppers from Tony's Market
No. 95: Fried chicken from the Pinyon

In late 2009, we embarked on a culinary journey that took us through our favorite dishes in the Mile High City -- one hundred, to be exact -- as a precursor to the Best of Denver issue. Now we're back with round two, counting down (in no particular order) a hundred more of our favorite Denver dishes in a list that, by our imperfect calculations, should be wrapped up by the time the Best of Denver 2011 hits the streets on March 31. In the meantime, if there's a dish you think we need to try, tell us about it in the comments section below, or shoot us an e-mail at lori.midson@westword.com.