Charcoal restaurant

On a sunny, cool Denver morning during Thanksgiving weekend, while seemingly everyone else was either hitting the slopes or watching college football, we supported small business Saturday by brunching at Charcoal on 9th and Acoma.

Charcoal's chef is Scandinavian, the menu is solidly European, but on weekends, the brunch has lots of Swedish touches thrown in.

Here's what A and C thought:

The tasting menu is the way to go. C got the semla swedish pastry. The fluffy brioche and cream were very filling, the almond portion was heavy, and the warm milk made the thick bread go down easier, but this was way too much of one sort of flavor and entirely too sweet for one person for breakfast. But if you're a jelly doughnut or lover of stacks of waffles and pancakes, perhaps you'll be able to swallow the whole thing.

A got the tasting menu _ a brilliant idea because you get to taste the more traditional brunch offerings, plus the special Charcoal ones. "All the courses were delicious, but most of them were so flavor-intense that a full platter of any single one would've led to taste bud fatigue/boredom. The 5 courses were vanilla yogurt parfait with granola and dried cranberries and fresh raspberries and blackberries; cardamom french toast with hazelnut cream, syrup and tiny chunks of watermelon and grapes underneath; potato pancakes with lingonberries and pecan smoked bacon; brisket hash with pickled golden beets; chocolate souffle with mousse. The French toast was fantastic, as were the potato pancakes with lingonberries and bacon. Bacon was nice and crisp. Pecan-ness was very subtle, I barely noticed it even knowing it was there. Golden beets were too vinegary for my tastes (most pickled things are), but went well with the hash. I probably could have enjoyed an entire dish of the hash, with little or no pickled beets. Souffle was too dry for my tastes, but the dryness was offset by the mousse. A bit of a shame, I love dark chocolate and its potential dryness doesn't bother me, but I expect cakes to be moist," A says. "The service was attentive and friendly without being overbearing. Caveat: We were there at the tail end of brunch, so the dining room was fairly empty."