Hop alley westword slideshow12/19/2023 Hop Alley is located at 3500 Larimer Street and is open from 5 to 10 p.m. But after that, you'll have to wait a bit before you can return to the expanded Hop Alley in 2023. If you have a craving for la zi ji or any of Hop Alley's other delectable dishes, reservations are open now through New Year's Eve. "This will give us a lot more flexibility." This area, which will have a different look than the original dining room, can be used during regular service or to accommodate smaller private parties. The separate kitchen will also allow for the possibility of pop-ups and guest chef dinners. "I'm always planning one or two iterations ahead," Lee notes. The new space will include a separate dining room complete with its own small kitchen and bar area. But he's confident the move will ultimately pay off. He's paying his staff through the closure, and says he may host pop-up events at his other restaurants during that time to help cover some of the costs. Lee expects Hop Alley to be shut down for about five weeks and then reopen in early February. "If I can connect the two spaces in a reasonable manner and have something that can be used year-round, why not do that?" he explains.īut connecting the two spaces is "a little bit of a process," he adds, since it includes removing the current walk-in and getting a new, shorter one, as well as relocating Hop Alley's front door to the 35th Street side.ĭanielle Lirette In order to complete the renovations, the restaurant will close after service on December 31 so that there can be some infrastructure repairs done in the original restaurant space. But when the space behind the restaurant, which had been used as an office, became available, he saw a new opportunity. After the indoor dining room was able to reopen following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, Lee thought about building a permanent patio on the Larimer Street side of the building. Like many restaurants, Hop Alley, which is quite small, added outdoor seating in 2020. With its hip-hop-fueled vibes and exhilarating take on Chinese food, including favorites like bone marrow fried rice and Beijing duck rolls, it quickly gained a reputation as one of the city's top eateries. Lee, who also owns ramen shop Uncle, which has two locations, opened Hop Alley in a former soy sauce factory on the corner of 35th and Larimer streets (our 2022 pick for the Best Corner for Eating and Drinking) in 2015. We’ve definitely had to raise some prices to balance inflation, but we look at the food and beverage program as a whole, and try to balance our costs across the entire mix of menu items to provide value."I'm basically building a new restaurant that could function on its own if needed," says restaurateur Tommy Lee of the renovations currently underway at Hop Alley, his popular Chinese eatery in RiNo. For the most part, our clientele is happy to pay the price for higher end products. We try to use the highest quality ingredients we can afford. How have you been able to maintain your standards with the cost of ingredients going up? It actually helps reduce the price per person when dining with a group. Each dish is a medium to large portion that enables people to share a few dishes to compose a complete meal. Our food is served family style like a traditional Chinese meal. How did you conceive of a menu that is delicious, yet good value? Then, we develop flavors and techniques that mix our style of traditional Chinese cuisine with modern touches. Then we look to ingredients, farms and our specialty suppliers for what we’d like to feature. How would you describe your approach to food and cooking?įor the most part, our ideas start with traditional Chinese dishes. Additionally, we want to support beautiful products and the people behind them. We hope guests see the complexity and nuance in Chinese food and hold it equal to other high end cuisines. If we are the gateway to other Chinese restaurants in town, that’s a win. Its good enough to make our list of 100 Favorite Dishes. We love introducing diners to regional Chinese flavors they may not be familiar with. Hop Alley takes a classic Cantonese dish of deep-fried crab and turns it into a spicy, salty lettuce wrap with a ton of crunch and flavor. Part of the creativity is the addition of a wood fired grill, working with local farms, an artisan beverage program but keeping it within the eating experience of a traditional Chinese restaurant. Walking into those places was intimidating, too but again, I learned so much and made some really. The idea was to open a fun, exciting restaurant focusing on regional Chinese flavors with a modern spin and a well curated bar program. I chose some of my favorite restaurants to eat at: Hop Alley, Ace Eat Serve and Annette.
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