Restaurant Tonno Brings Experiential Dining to Denver This Fall

A new type of dining experience is coming to Denver this fall. Restaurant Tonno will serve 11- to 16-course tasting menus five nights a week in a cozy, intimate setting with just 30 seats. The space is located at 2201 W. 32nd Ave. in a former yoga studio below Ali Baba Grill.

Denver-born and New York-raised chef Alec Bruno created the restaurant. The former sous chef at Ocean Prime went on to launch his own catering company, Catering By Chef Bruno.

Restaurant Tonno’s menus will be inspired by modern gastronomy, with Italian and Japanese influences. “Our goal is to give diners amazing service and amazing food and to give them something they can’t experience anywhere else,” says Bruno. “I’ve always been a risk taker,” he says. “I’m excited to do what I want to do with the food.”

The meals will be an experiential journey through food. For example, it may begin with a warm cloth steamed in lavender and cut grass that diners use to wipe their hands before the meal to impart the smell of spring, followed by different varieties of strawberries and a watermelon gazpacho topped in popped corn. Another course may be potato croquettes topped in a Parmesan crème fraîche, truffles, and caviar. The tasting menu may include ramen served in an egg, with pork belly and a pork skin crisp atop a soup dumpling, or arancini made with Iberico lardon in a nigiri style.

Restaurant Tonno is slated for opening in the first week of October.

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