If Cherry Creek has a cursed restaurant address, it might just be the Clayton Hotel & Members Club. Since opening in 2021, each of its three public restaurant spaces have cycled through at least three lives, accounting for 11 total eateries. The hidden lounge, which once housed speakeasy Five Nines and later Moroccan-inspired piano bar Chez Roc, now sits vacant. The main dining room, currently chef-restauranteur Johnny Curiel’s Alteño, has cycled from American woodfired Of a Kind and Greek restaurant Kini’s. Across the lobby, the bar has shape-shifted from the all-day Oak Market to Cretans, a caviar-and-martini happy hour spot, to the lavishly designed Bar Amorina, and to, most recently, Curiel’s Mar Bella Wine Bar.
This summer marks yet another reinvention. Curiel is swapping Mar Bella for Tequilería Alteño, his lively homage to Mexico’s neighborhood cantinas, beginning July 8. If the idea catches on, he’ll make it permanent. Upstairs, the Clayton will open its members-only rooftop restaurant to the public for the first time, handing the keys to Id Est Hospitality’s chef and restaurateur Kelly Whitaker for his new tasting-menu residency, Sheep. That concept debuted on July 8 and will run through October 4.
This is far from the first time Curiel and Whitaker have been mentioned in the same breath. Earlier this month, Food & Wine spotlighted the chefs’ work with the MASA Seed Foundation to bring heirloom corn back to Colorado, connecting regenerative agriculture with some of the state’s most celebrated kitchens…