Palettes Restaurant Fills the Bill - Most of the Time

A Great Art Museum Deserves a Great Restaurant

Perhaps it is because I have never been fortunate enough to live long enough in an area with a good art museum. The point is that the last thing I would look for in an art museum would be a pretty good resturant. Well it turns out that the same type of people that love top quality Art Museums also enjoy fine food. That is the challenge for Palettes, the restaurant located at the Denver Art Museum. Frankly you can get varying reports about the food. It seems that people either really enjoy Palettes or don't have much good to say about it.

THE DAM ( Denver Art Museum ) has had a resturant on the premises for 11 years. About two years ago the resturant was closed for almost a full year while that part of the facilities was upgraded and enlarged. Right after they reopened with the new and larger facility things really picked up. After one year the menu did not change much and the alternating good and not so good experiences started to be reported.

Denver has a lot of great restaurants and the best of them change the menu often with seasonal dishes as a specialty. Perhaps Palettes needs to do more of that. It can be said that private parties held at Palettes are generally well thought of. Perhaps that is because the waiter staff is very helpful and the kitchen staff knows what they are doing. With a party menu pretty much dictated by the guest it might be more of a challenge that they all rise to. Lunches we have had at Palettes have been pretty good and personally I don't have any complaints about the meals we have enjoyed there.

Over all Palettes is worth giving a try. They open for lunch and dinner every day except Monday when they are closed. They say they plan to start doing more emphasis on special day menus such as Mothers Day, etc. Per person costs run from around $12 to $28 before tips or wine.