It’s a big deal when a boldface-name chef moves up the hill to open a restaurant. It’s an even bigger deal when two Front Range favorites—in this case, Tavernetta and Avanti food hall—arrive in the same place at the same time. Brace yourself, Vail: Denver dining is coming for the mountains.

In August, Tavernetta, the sister restaurant of Michelin-starred Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, announced a winter opening in the former Flame space inside the Four Seasons Resort & Residences in Vail Village. Courting Frasca Hospitality Group to open its first mountain-town restaurant may be a coup for the Four Seasons, but it’s something of a homecoming for co-founder and master sommelier Bobby Stuckey. “I’m very comfortable doing things in the mountains,” Stuckey says. “I worked at The Little Nell in Aspen. I know what a responsibility this is, and I’m humbled and honored.”

Stuckey is something of a celebrity in the culinary world, and he’s downplaying it when he says he “worked” at The Little Nell. He headed up the hotel’s illustrious wine program for five years, racking up a collection of awards along the way. From there he spent four years (and nabbed more accolades) at The French Laundry, before moving to Boulder to open Frasca in 2004.

Tavernetta, which followed Frasca in downtown Denver in 2017, is the more casual of the two Italian restaurants, although exquisite hospitality reigns supreme at both. That makes Tav a perfect fit for the Four Seasons. “We have the same end goal,” explains hotel General Manager Jerome Arribas. “That is entertaining people in the same way and being dedicated to hospitality. True hospitality is hard to deliver.”

Unlike Denver, where Tavernetta serves lunch and dinner, the Vail restaurant will focus on breakfast and dinner, thus sending guests to the hotel’s Remedy Bar for the midday meal. “We’ll give up lunch, but we’ll do our version of a mountain breakfast,” Stuckey says. “There will also be some menu tweaks that’ll be more alpine inspired.” This isn’t much of a reach for the team because years ago, Stuckey and Frasca Hospitality Group partner Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson researched an alpine menu inspired by the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy.

Although there’s no set date for opening, both Stuckey and Arribas confirm that the target is the holidays.

It’s All About the Base

One base area over, at Vail Village’s Golden Peak, Avanti Food & Beverage—a food hall that originated in Denver’s LoHi neighborhood and has a satellite location on Boulder’s Pearl Street—is also opening this winter. In a $4 million renovation, Avanti is taking over the space Larkspur Restaurant vacated last spring. This project will go a long way toward activating the east side of the village, which was originally designed as a base camp for Vail’s ski and snowboard club and has a chairlift instead of a gondola like Vail Village and Lionshead. As such, Golden Peak has been off the radar for much of the skiing public. (Avanti will offer valet parking and complimentary shuttle service from Vail Village; Vail Resorts is working on the gondy: a master development plan for Vail Mountain filed last winter includes replacing the Riva Bahn/Chair 6 with a gondola connecting Golden Peak with Two Elk Lodge.)

The team behind the food hall, including Director of Operations Travis Christ, hopes the draw of Avanti’s multiple concepts will bring buzz—and hungry skiers—to Golden Peak. At press time, vendors had yet to be announced. “We’ll have five individual restaurants, and our focus will be on Colorado-based chefs,” he says, adding that there will be sushi, pizza, and burger concepts in addition to excellent breakfast burritos, egg sammies, and strong coffee to fuel the first-chair crowd.

Vail Resorts owns the building, so don’t expect much in the way of exterior changes, but Avanti will debut this winter with a huge patio and firepits à la the Ritz Carlton-Bachelor Gulch. The hope is to create a hopping après scene. “Vail Resorts is really spending time on activating this side of the mountain,” Christ says. The renovation itself will focus on the building’s interior, creating individual restaurants and new communal spaces, including two new bars.

Avanti’s keystone is its flexibility and friendly pricing. The multi-vendor model has proved out in Denver and Boulder (where dishes range from $5 to $20), and it’s expected to take off in Vail as well. “Our goal is to still be accessible,” says Christ. “Here’s a place where you can show up with a group of 10, you don’t need a reservation six months in advance, and you’re not spending $30 on a cocktail.”

Inviting Avanti to the table was a smart move for Vail Resorts. Not only does the concept promise Vail Mountain skiers much-needed (and long overlooked) variety, the food hall already has a built-in local audience: Of the multitudes that frequent Avanti in Denver and Boulder each year, it is safe to assume that a solid percentage of these regulars also will make their way to Vail and that, at some point during their visit, they’ll be hungry.