Bruce Polack has always been about education. Since his culinary journey began at Olive Garden in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, he’s been dead set on pushing the envelope. “That’s always been my motif. I want to push myself, I want to learn,” he said. That drive took him to Parc in Rittenhouse Square, the famed French bistro by Stephen Starr that is also one of the highest-grossing restaurants in Philadelphia. It also landed him a job at Buddakan NYC, where he spent a few years living out the Big Apple dream he’d been manifesting since high school. “I started to kind of fall in love,” he said of the in-depth wine and spirit knowledge he was cultivating at each esteemed venue. “At that time, the bells were ringing.”
Lucky for Denver, he’s now the Beverage Director and General Manager of The Regular, the utterly fabulous fine-dining joint by husband and wife duo Brian De Souza and Sydney Younggreen that debuted in June of last year.
On June 28, the restaurant celebrated its one-year anniversary. It’s probably also worth mentioning that around that time Polack was recognized with an Award of Excellence in the August issue of Wine Spectator. His programs — both cocktail and wine — are out of this world, reflecting his knowledge as a level two certified sommelier. “The ethos of the beverage program is putting things in front of people that they should be drinking,” he said. There are no big-name brands to be found anywhere on the shelf and even the well is stocked with rarities. The well tequila is Arette Artesanal Suave Fuerte 101, Arrette silver’s high-proof cousin that is entirely too delightful for its potency. “Our vision is clearly presented to our distributors,” he continued.
That Polack is producing some of the city’s best cocktails and orchestrating a wine list almost entirely composed of exceptional natural, organic, biodynamic and sustainable bottles should come as no surprise considering the caliber of the food and the elegance of the service.
De Souza and his team take the scaffolding of fine dining classics and insert fresh ideas to small and large plates with panache. There are oysters with parsley, thyme and pickled shallot and steak tartare that comes loaded with cashew cream, fried garlic and yucca chips. The gnocchi arrives iridescent green with charred leek, pecorina and cracked black pepper. Order this. Larger plates include a filet mignon, whole Colorado bass and chupe — a traditional Peruvian soup with lobster, kanpachi, mussels, choclo, potatoes and aji panca. “We don’t follow any fucking rules,” grinned De Souza.
Everything about the restaurant is ambitious. “It takes us doing what we’re doing to change the trajectory of restaurants,” said Polack. A meal here is transformative, both food and drink clear expressions of individual dreams achieved with love and integrity.
In April, the team converted the market space they had previously been using as a coffee shop that served light bites into The Cellar, a wine and spirit store entirely curated by Polack. “Overall it just complimented our other brands better,” said Younggreen. While the market, El Mercado was well-received, The Cellar feels like a more natural extension of the team’s overall ideation. It serves many of the menu’s best bottles and favors both quality and scarcity while still keeping things on the affordable side.
“How I grew in the industry was having people more experienced than me saying ‘try this, taste this,’” he said. Once a student of the greats, Polack is now the teacher. “Me working at Parc and Buddakan taught me what to do with my trainings.” The Cellar is more than a wine shop, it’s a lifelong vision generously shared with anyone who values the rare and the refined.
The Regular is located at 1432 Market St., Denver. It is open Wednesday and Thursday from 4:30 – 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 4:30 – 10 p.m., and again on Sunday from 4:30 – 9 p.m. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday.
The Cellar has the same hours.
All photos courtesy of The Regular.