Line cooks are so 2015.
At least, that’s the hope of an enterprising pair of restaurateurs in Centennial who are attempting to flip the script on a traditional night on the town.
“Our catchphrase is ‘cooking class meets a dinner party,’” said Katie Robbins, co-owner of Uncorked Kitchen, which opened last October at 8171 S. Chester St. in Centennial.
The restaurant, which Robbins designed and opened with her husband, Eric, blends education with fine dining by inviting customers to take part in cooking the food that they inevitably consume. Equipped with two tricked-out operational kitchens, Uncorked employs six chef instructors who lead diners through the process of creating decadent three- to five-course meals.
“It’s an opportunity to bring that dinner party outside your home, where you’re not responsible for any of the cleanup, but you get to have that socialization and fun,” Katie said. “And you get to play around with ingredients that you don’t usually get to try.”
The Robbins’ began fleshing out Uncorked’s unique concept when the couple moved back to Denver after more than a decade of living in Boston, where Katie ran a trio of youth fitness centers and Eric was a culinary instructor. Upon taking stock of the suburban Denver social scene, the pair quickly learned that there was a vastly under-served market waiting to be tapped.
“We saw that there was not a lot south of Denver providing what we wanted to do,” Katie said.
That lingering void in Denver’s date night and dining scene was a driving factor in setting up shop in Centennial.
“We’re trying to bring a piece of Downtown Denver to south Denver,” Katie said. “And the wine bar piece was a really under-served population.”
On top of offering structured educational events, Uncorked also houses a causal wine bar, which is open 3 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The bar boasts more than 40 rotating bottles of wine, small plates, and doesn’t require a reservation. Sessions with the restaurant’s chef instructors must be booked at least 24 hours in advance, according to Katie.
“The wine bar is more of a drop-in experience with enough food options to put together a lighter, more European-style dinner, but still enough to be satisfied,” she said. “In the kitchens we offer the opportunity to embellish. It’s great for that home cook everyone knows who is really looking for something unique.”
Going forward, Katie said that one of the restaurant’s goals in its first full year of existence will be to host at least one monthly beer, wine or spirit tasting in collaboration with local brewers, distillers and vintners. Already making good on that plan, Uncorked recently invited the brewmaster at Denver’s Declaration Brewing Company over to lead a special evening session where attendees were able to sample and cook with several different Declaration beers.
The price of an evening at Uncorked varies from event to event, but sits firmly in the triple digits if you’re looking to feed two people. An average adult event runs about $89 per person, which includes all of the necessary ingredients sans alcohol. Special events, like the recent collaboration with Declaration, often include alcohol and cost about $30 more than the average per person. The restaurant also offers a date night package that totals $210 and includes a bottle of wine.
And although the concept of paying to spend an evening perfecting recipes may seem strange to some diners, the idea of cutting out the wait staff and inviting patrons directly into the kitchen isn’t completely foreign, according to Jorge de la Torre, dean of culinary education at Johnson & Wales University in Denver. On the contrary, de la Torre said that giving people more of an experience and more control over their meals is what many 21st century diners crave.
“People are definitely more interested in learning about how to cook, and I think that now they’re more adventurous than ever,” he said. “It’s from watching cooking shows, from Yelp and the ability for everybody to be a critic.”
De la Torre said that the ability to hyper-control a meal could be particularly appealing for people with dietary restrictions who may typically have a difficult time finding amenable menus around town.
“A lot of people don’t even go out because they don’t like giving up that control they can have at home,” he said. “But maybe at a place like (Uncorked Kitchen) they feel a bit better about their meal because they have more of a hand in it.”