Dining- 12@Madison ...secret sauce

Despite it being 5:00 the host looked at us with arched eyes. "You have a reservation of course." "Of course." Of course we did. It was Saturday night (if you can call 5:00 night) and dining in Denver requires a reservation. Obviously.

We started with drinks of course. Dirtini (ha! I meant to write dirty martini and it came out as dirtini which is obviously brilliant) for me.
​Some sort of fancy gin and tonic for my friend from out of town, and a salad drink for Steve. 
Not interested in a salad drink? Look at the Parker Rolls. Now rush to 12 @ Madison and do more than look at them.

---

Perhaps it was Steve's liquid but despite wanting to order all of the meats and carbs we did begin with a lovely baby squash dish. ​ We were particularly interested in the
masa crunchies and we were right to be. I think more veggies need Masa crunchies.

​

Here you see chicken and waffles with burnt orange syrup, orecchiette with
roasted mushrooms, confit garlic, hazelnuts, manchego cheese, and a deconstructed french dip. Or you would have seen the deconstructed French Dip but Steve ate it before I photographed it. The big winner was the orecchiette, or more specifically the orecchiette sauce. I didn't think I liked hazelnuts outside of a Nutella tub, but apparently I do. 

This was where we ran into trouble.  Delicious rolls are usually a plus. Excellent service is always a plus.But when you want to eat every single last drop of a sauce and you have finished your rolls you need to go into hard battle to save the sauce. Attentive servers tried to clear our dish at least four times before my friend moved it to the very inside of the table and arched her arm around it like a seventh grader sitting next to a cheater at an exam. If we were small dogs we would have growled.

If you look back at what is left of the French Dip you can see how our strategery helped us. Those deconstructed bread bits? They found a higher purpose with this hazelnut manchego ambrosia.

We finished with omasake.Here the kitchen takes into account the rest of your order and creates a dish to complement and complete your meal. There was no way for the line to know that we simply wanted more sauce so our trust lead to an encrusted tuna. It came with vegetables.

​I hear it was delicious...but I was too busy still working on finishing the sauce to try it.

Do I recommend 12 @ Madison? Oh yes. Just make sure you have a reservation, an order of the sauce that comes with pasta, and a double order of rolls.
Of course.