Forty new restaurants are participating in Denver Restaurant Week -- and we've got the sneak-peek list

The entire list of restaurants participating in Denver Restaurant Week (or weeks, since the dates for Denver's best deals on meals actually stretch from February 26 through March 11) goes live today at the stroke of noon, but even before those restaurants are revealed, we've got the scoop on the forty restaurants that are new to this year's lineup -- forty restaurants that, for whatever reason, have never before joined the fray.

And those forty restaurants, many of which include some of the hottest tables to open within the last year, are part of the 268 food temples across the city that are taking part in Denver Restaurant Week, which trumpets multi-course dinners for the "mile high" fixed price of $52.80 for two, $26.40 for one, excluding tax and tip.

According to Rich Grant -- director of communications for VISIT DENVER, The Convention & Visitors Bureau, the group that organizes Denver Restaurant Week -- the final number of restaurants participating in the two-week extravaganza will jump to 300, making it the largest restaurant week in the country. "We definitely expect to break the 300 mark this year," predicts Grant, who says that dineLA Restaurant Week "claimed to have had 300 participants last year," a boast, he notes, that may or may not be true. "L.A. is really spread out, so it's easy for them to say that," jokes Grant.

While Grant and his crew work to reach that magic number, here are the forty restaurants that are new to the 2011 roster: