A Look Inside Crave Dessert Bar & Lounge

Grid View

• Crave Dessert Bar & Lounge Chef Jessica Scott and Owner Allen Milham.
• At the Crave bar, Novo coffee, tea, wine, liquor, beer and bubbles will all be served. The bar and lounge will also serve flights, like champagne and vermouth tastings.
• Crave's bar and lounge area that will be open from morning until late-night.
• The booth snakes in the back of the space, providing standing room.
• The view from standing in the lounge area.
  
• The dessert case where Chef Jessic Scott's desserts will be featured.
• The bare bones of the bar, yet to be stocked.
• Crave Dessert Bar & Lounge is situated right next to Organic Pizza Company, a sister operation.

After construction delays, Crave Dessert Bar & Lounge, tucked in Denver's theatre district in the Spire building, is ready to kick off soft openings this weekend followed by a grand opening on Monday.

Allen Milham, co-owner of Crave and Organic Pizza CO. next door, gave Eater a sneak peek into the space earlier this week. Along with executive chef Jessica Scott (previously of D Bar and TAG) barista guru Ami Cusack (formerly of Common Grounds) and barman Brian Melton (also a vet of TAG), Milham is ready to show Denver a space he's been thinking about for some time now.

Taking notes from one of his favorite dessert concepts in Chicago, Hot Chocolate, Milham said the inspiration for Crave was really drawn from several avenues of thought. Denver, being a young and vibrant city with a growing restaurant scene, intrigued him, and though he now lives in Chicago, he grew up in Denver.

"Although we are a dessert place, we have a lot of additional elements to the space than a typical dessert restaurant. That's where all of the events come into play," he said. His biggest observation was that downtown Denver did not have a dessert bar option.

Milham also had a desire to create a space to attract city dwellers of every schedule that would perform a number of functions, including as a venue for artists and musicians to showcase their work. Crave will serve pastries and coffee in the mornings, cater to the downtown night crawlers in the evenings and eventually serve high tea in the afternoons.

Scott will have a variety of cakes and plated desserts, including a 20 layer chocolate peanut butter cake. Milham's shtick about the style of desserts in this: "A lot of times restaurants will create these desserts that are so far-fetched that sometimes people don't want to try them. What we do is create desserts that are very traditional, but with a spin to them." The cocktail menu will feature unique dessert pairing options, including flights of bubbles and vermouth.

· Crave Dessert Bar & Lounge Will Open In The Spire [Westword]