Despite its name, Westword's eighteenth annual Artopia spotlighted much more than art. Across this year's five venues, the event also featured food from Little Man Ice Cream, The Shoppe, El Camino, Little India, Jersey Mike's Subs, Sushi by Night, Mustard's Last Stand and DJ's Berkeley Cafe. We asked Artopia attendees to text in votes for their favorite eatery of the evening. And the winner is...Little India. The Denver Indian food staple came in first in audience appreciation this year. Congrats!

See also:
- Photos: The people and art of Artopia 2013
- Photos: An Instagram tour of Artopia 2013
- A unicorn bumping and grinding -- I never thought I'd see that. Thanks, Artopia 2013!

Lori Midson

An appreciative crowd of convivial drinkers bellied up to the bar last night at Ghost Plate & Tap, the site of Industry Denver's first Winter Talent Showcase, a cocktail-centric bash that pimped the mad mixology skills of several Denver bartenders, including Dante Reesman, Melissa Durant, Matty Durgin, Jason Patz, Anthony Giovanni and Ken Kodys. Each bartender collaborated with a local distillery -- Mile High Spirits, Dancing Pines Distillery, Peach Street Distillers, Spring 44, Spirit Hounds and Leopold Bros. -- and the cocktails (the majority of them, anyway) were worthy of an encore.

I was there for all the revelry, and brought back a gallery of photos that captured the merriment. For a full-on photographic journey of last night's festivities, check out our full Winter Talent Showcase slide show.

See also:
- Photos: Beer and cheer at Wynkoop's Parade of Darks
- Seven Colorado food and spirits producers emerge as finalists for a 2013 Good Food Award
- Ken Kodys wins the 42Below Cocktail World Cup

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Christopher Morgan

Slide show: Web Awards 2012

We came. We saw. We tweeted. Last night, Westword hosted the third annual Denver Web Awards, our celebration of Denver's greatest digital minds. In September, we put out a call for you, dear readers, to nominate your favorite online projects, and a team at Westword spent more than a month whittling your suggestions down to our final entries across categories featuring news, arts, food and music. Continue reading to see the winners of the food categories in this year's Denver Web Awards.

See also:
- Denver's Best Instagram Account 2012
- Slide show: Web Awards 2012
- Meet your 2012 Denver #WebAwards winners
- Twenty best Instagram photos from the 2012 Denver #WebAwards
- Meet the 2012 Denver #WebAwards finalists
- Fifteen best tweets about the 2012 Denver #WebAwards

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Santa says you must order these four at a time.

The holidays bring out the very best in fast food restaurants (and sometimes in their customers who can be more easily shamed into not behaving like dingleberries in long lines), especially when it comes to seasonal drinks and desserts of the minty, eggnoggy and gingerbread-y type that we don't have access to the rest of the year. And absence makes the heart and digestive system grow fonder. Here's our list of the top five 2012 fast food holiday items. If only there was a holiday-themed McRib. Maybe if everyone asks Santa this year?

See also:
-Pie-ku: the new McDonald's Strawberry & Crème premium pie
-Five good things about the Chick-Fil-A controversy
-Starbucks' artsy new mini-modular pops up in metro Denver

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Samantha Alviani

The Great American Beer Festival is a mecca for beer afficianados--but curiously, it seems to be home to something else, as well: The Great American Beard. Continue reading for photos of our favorite chin-growers from the three-day booze-a-palooza.

See also:
- Great American Beer Festival 2012: The People
- Great American Beer Festival: The Beer
- Best Beer Swag of Great American Beer Festival

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Lori Midson

TAG's Tyler Lewis waxes on with beer cocktails.

Can craft beer be an ingredient in a cocktail, or should it stand alone?

That is the question that dozens of bartenders around town have tried to answer over the past few years as Colorado's world-beating craft-beer industry intersected with the resurgent cocktail movement. It's a question that still hasn't been answered.

But eight of Denver's best mixologists gave it a serious shot on Sunday afternoon, when they broke out their strainers, their potions and their amazing creativity for the great Beer Cocktail Shakedown at Ghost Plate & Tap. Want to see the pictures? Then check out our slide show, "Beer Cocktail Shakedown at Ghost Plate & Tap."

See also
- Beer Cocktail Shakedown at Ghost Plate & Tap
- Mix your beer and your booze at Ghost Plate & Tap's Beer Cocktail Shakedown
- Tara Curry takes over the bar at Ghost Plate & Tap

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Lori Midson

Parallel Seventeen chef/owner Mary Nguyen is joined by Andrew Zimmern, host of Bizarre Foods, at last night's Denver Adventurous Eaters Club dinner.

I learned several things at last night's Denver Adventurous Eaters Club dinner at Parallel Seventeen:

1) Pig uterus is absolutely lovely and should appear on menus everywhere.
2) Parallel Seventeen chef/owner Mary Nguyen is one badass chef, who has the ability to cook just about anything, "bizarre" or otherwise, and turn it into edible gold. Ozzy Osbourne: Eat your guts out.
3) Andrew Zimmern is the anti-celebrity chef who doesn't want to be an asshole.

See also:

Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern arrives in Denver this weekend for an adventurous romp of eating.
Chef and Tell with Mary Nguyen of Parallel 17.

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Lori Midson

A few months ago, during the merry month of May, Elise Wiggins, exec chef of Panzano, took some time away from her downtown Italian restaurant to do a stagisti with Dario Cecchini, the rock star butcher who's made an international name for himself in the diminutive town of Panzano, in Italy's Chianti region, where he's the legendary face behind Antica Macelleria Cecchinia, his small, world-renowned, family-owned artisanal butcher shop.

See also:
What Elise Wiggins Learned in Italy: You're never too old to learn!
Chef and Tell: Elise Wiggins of Panzano

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All photos by Lori Midson.

Larkburger took home the winning trophy for this beast, voted best in burgerville by a panel of four judges, including Jenna Johansen, Hosea Rosenberg, Max MacKissock and Daniel Asher.

The Denver Burger Battle amounted to a cook-off of epic proportions at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium last night, as chefs from restaurants in Boulder and Denver competed in a fierce competition to raise money for the Kossler Foundation, which distributes funds to local nonprofits. I was there for the throw-down and captured a ton of photos from the friendly brawl, which featured Larkburger, Highland Tap and Burger, CityGrille, TAG, Park Burger, The Sink, Madison Street, Crave, H Burger, Mateo, Cholon and Row 14. By the way, Larkburger won first place from the judges, while Crave won the hearts of the people.

Continue through for meaty photos of the flame wars.

See also:
- Denver Burger Battle heats up Sports Authority Field tonight
- Slide show: Food porn of the Denver Burger Battle

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All photos by Brandon Marshall.

Denver's culinary enthusiasts have some seriously glorious food faces. As proof, we offer the following photos, taken by Westword photographer Brandon Marshall at last night's LoDo Bites celebration. Hundreds of food fans flocked to a string of lower downtown eateries including 1515 Restaurant, Ambria, Bistro Vendome, Coohills, Euclid Hall, The Kitchen Denver, MCA Cafe, Red Star Deli, Vesta Dipping Grill, Wazee Supper Club and Wynkoop Brewing Company, among others, to sample a variety of dishes. Continue through for photos of the best expressions that resulted.

See also:
- Slide show: Food faces at LoDo Bites
- Take a bite out of LoDo, one restaurant at a time

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