New restaurant opens in Hermosa
If you’re looking for a hearty breakfast or casual lunch on your way to Durango Mountain Resort or Silverton, you have a new place to stop.
Hermosa Creek Grill, 32223 U.S. Highway 550, opened last week in the old Mama’s Boy Pizza space on the west side of the highway. It’s open every day from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and serves breakfast until 11 a.m.
The holiday weekend brought customers in to sit on the covered patio and enjoy the view, to say nothing of the house specialty, green-chile cheese grits. So far, the most popular dish at breakfast is the tacos, filled with sausage, potatoes, cheese and green chile and topped with homemade salsa.
The 41-seat restaurant also serve eggs any way, omelets, buttermilk pancakes, jumbo cinnamon rolls and bagels with homemade veggie or honey-almond cream cheese, as well as offering a full espresso bar.
The big seller at lunch is the Greek gyro, spit-roasted lamb served with onions, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce (an herbal cucumber-yogurt concoction). And the Southwest double cheeseburger – two patties topped with cheddar and green chile on a brioche bun – also did a hearty business, said building owner John Ogorzalek.
Ogorzalek’s son, Ryan Davis, is the owner of the cafe. He returned from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to open the restaurant, which charges less than $10 for most items.
“There are a lot of workers out here that have no place to eat,” Davis said. “We wanted to offer a good meal for a fair value.”
Sutcliffe syrah earns high honors
Local vintner John Sutcliffe has scored in the 90s again, this time with a syrah from McElmo Canyon, a little ways down the road from their home property outside of Cortez.
Wine Enthusiast magazine awarded Sutcliffe’s 2010 Canyon of the Ancients 90 points on a 100-point scale for its flavorful black fruits, good balance and structured tannins.
Winemaker Joe Buckel attributes the success of the wine to the vineyard’s intense exposure to the sun, which creates a thicker grape skin and thus a bigger, fruit-filled wine. Then 90-point score is the highest ranked of any wine made with Colorado-grown grapes.
“It’s a big food wine,” he said. “We make wines to eat with food; that’s what we have in mind.”
Eric Allen, co-owner of the Wine Merchant, described the $30 bottle as nicely proportioned with spicy black fruit.
“It’s balanced; it’s not one of those big monsters,” he said. “It would go well with anything off the grill, ribs or even barbecued chicken.”
Better hurry though, because since the rating came out, the syrah is becoming harder to find. Wine Merchant, Animas Wine and Spirits, Wagon Wheel Liquors and Liquor World all had bottles left of the vintage on Tuesday.
Pamela Hasterok
This story has been corrected since its original publication to reflect the correct owner of the Hermosa Cafe.
