The multicourse contemporary tasting menu rotates quarterly (think harvest-themed in the fall). This kitchen offers far from typical dishes. Seared quail breast with a confit leg is spot on, especially when sided by creamed kale made with sunflower seeds and a quail reduction. The hits keep coming through to dessert, where a warm, fluted buckwheat tart with a custard filling is bested with a cocoa nib crumble and a quenelle of subtle-yet-spectacular cinnamon and celeriac ice cream.

At this singular enclave, Chef Barclay Dodge and his team are executing seasonally inspired cooking that focuses on foraging, fermenting and local farms. From hand-picked spruce tips to butter from locally sourced cooperative dairy cows, this is a concept that pays attention to details—even ingredients from farther afield, like lobster from New England, gets a hit of local flavor from being grilled over juniper wood.

The cooking is Italian, but in a hyper-specific way: it's the food of the northeast Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. You'll find pasta and seafood on the prix fixe and tasting menus, but Slavic and Alpine elements also appear. Focused and distinct, the menu might showcase a lesser known part of Italy, but the ingredients are clearly Coloradan. Save room for dessert, like the beautifully arranged goat cheese semifreddo.

Chef Michael Diaz de Leon runs the show here, where the team takes a serious approach to locality and seasonality, not only in the produce but also the grains, which they mill or nixtamalize in-house. The mastery of the hearth as the primary cooking implement makes this operation special, and the menu, which is Mexican at its core, has a clear narrative, and is perhaps best displayed in lamb prepared two ways—as a street-style taco and ground lamb leg kushiyaki with a quenelle of mole chichilo.

Chef Taylor Stark shepherds a creative multicourse menu that abounds with personality, boasting a unique, genre-defying style that draws variously from Nordic, Italian and East Asian cuisines, but nonetheless feels focused and cohesive. Although the menu shifts throughout the year to explore different themes, diners will find a common thread in cooking that highlights ingredients while displaying technical precision and harmonious flavors, with fermentation a frequent motif.

Chef/owner Hosea Rosenberg is a familiar name in these parts, and you'll taste her handiwork across the menu, and in the charcuterie boards showcasing duck rillette, pork terrine, headcheese and saucisson. Koji-cured pork is supremely flavorful, while agnolotti made of caramelized onion dough in a fragrant mushroom "brodo" is an inventive twist. For the win, order the donuts, especially the chocolate hazelnut caramel and milk chocolate-hazelnut topping.

It's a farmhouse-meets-lodge vibe at Jill and Chef Eric Skokan's Bramble & Hare, where wood paneled walls and wood floors keep things rustic, and chairs and loveseats are draped with fur throws for an extra dose of charm. The couple's own farm supplies most of the inspiration for the dishes on this American menu—even down to the prosciutto they age in-house from their own pigs.