The plan wasn’t originally to sit down with a team of chefs, but that’s just how Chef Adam Branz – who owns and operates Ultreia, Split Lip and the other cluster of creative concepts in his head ever-threatening to burst into reality – rolls. The longtime Crafted Concepts veteran who at different stages of his Denver career worked Back of House at Rioja, Bistro Vendôme, and Euclid Hall before opening Ultreia in 2017 is a class act in a leadership role. Humble, grateful, and immensely collaborative, he has carved out his own always-evolving corner of the Denver restaurant scene – with a short blip having stretched all the way to Louisville, Kentucky – alongside and in partnership with the talented team he’s built.
“I hope you’re cool with everybody joining. It always feels a little insincere whenever I have these conversations and don’t include the people around me who make it all possible. Cam was half the creation of Cul-de-Sac,” Chef Adam said in reference to Cameron Tittle – one of Branz’s many right-hand cooks, chefs and restauranters, and the one that until recently, helped launch and operate the “Sleazy French Food Truck” outside of Dewey Beer in RiNo. “He was also 100% of its execution, and is still with Split Lip, too.”
“Megan’s the pastry chef at Ultreia,” said Branz, speaking on Chef Megan Bernal, who bounced between French restaurants, Denver staples and corporate kitchen training gigs before landing a part-time position at Rioja, and then eventually joined Ultreia in 2023. “But she does a lot more than that.”
“And Alex is the sous-chef,” said Branz, introducing Alex Mackenzie – a soft-spoken, creatively inclined chef who’s always building more of his dynamic influence into the Iberian menu. “Especially if the question is about the balance of one’s day, I don’t exist without these guys.”
Chef Adam Branz flew into Denver in 2010 fresh off ear surgery. After a concussive stretch of five kitchen stages in one day trying to land a job, he ended up at Rioja under Executive Chef and Operating Partner, Jen Jasinski and alongside other now well-known Denver chefs including Dana Rodriguez (Carne, Casa Bonita), Jorel Pierce (formerly Euclid Hall and Stoic & Genuine) and Tim Kuklinski (Bistro Vendôme).
“Euclid Hall opened shortly after that, so then I started over there. From there I worked at Rioja, Euclid Hall and Bistro Vendôme until I left for a while. I went to California and did some Michelin Star stuff until I came back and we opened Ultreia in 2017.”
“It was 2020 when Split Lip started to take shape,” explained Branz about the conception of what was then a Nashville Hot Chicken and Mississippi Slug Burger pop-up, bouncing between breweries and “anywhere that would let [them], plus a couple of streets that were shut down for the pandemic.”
The transition from a string of elevated Denver kitchens to an experimental and rule-breaking Southern-inspired pop-up may seem like a reversal of inspiration for most chefs. But for Branz, the name of the game is to “give everything an edge.” Whether it’s Happy Hour tapas at Union Station, Escargot Wontons outside a brewery or too many pickles and an admittedly greasy burger while catching an Avs game at RiNo’s Number 38, he and his team are not cooking to follow the rules.
“One of the guys that would frequent our pop-ups was friends with the owners of Number 38,” explained Branz. “So, they made the introduction and then our whole world turned upside down. There were three of us just kind of operating out the back of my Subaru, and then that team grew to like 12 or 15 overnight.”
“I think you were the first hire once we opened up inside of Number 38,” said Branz to Cameron Tittle, who at the time owned and operated Kaos Pizza in Platte Park.
“I left that because I wanted to work for Adam like really badly,” explained Tittle.
“The first time we met was at a Split Lip pop-up at Diebolt Brewing,” detailed Branz, “I heard Cameron was coming and I saw this car flying around the corner, and this guy got out with a 12-pack of Busch N/A and his shirt off, and it was love at first sight.”
“We’ve all been able to be creative,” said Tittle, “which is fantastic. We can do whatever we want to there. When we first started, it was like walking on pins and needles and making sure the menu wasn’t too crazy. But now it’s much more creative and freer.”
And when asked about his favorite thing on Split Lip’s menu right now, “I think the carnitas ribs. They’re fantastic. They literally just taste like fried carnitas.”
Adam Branz is a chef’s chef. In an industry mired by incessant turnover, there are only so many restaurants where talent not only wants to come but also wants to stay. In a city with so many new restaurant openings, that problem is exaggerated even further. So, fostering a healthy, respectful and collaborative culture where Back of House and Front of House employees alike can learn and contribute, has become a paramount goal.
“I think so often in this industry, you learn what you can and move on,” said Chef Megan Bernal about her Ultreia tenure since January of 2023, “but I’ve really enjoyed this experience so far. Adam came back and really switched things up for the better, so I’m happy to stick around as long as I can.”
Alex Mackenzie feels the same way. “So I started with Rioja in 2020. But it’s been about three years that I’ve been at Ultreia. This restaurant’s wonderful. It has a lot of promise. I find the challenge of Iberian cuisine very interesting because it’s not really one that I was very familiar with. Adam’s very good with ideas and it’s nice to actually see those ideas come to fruition.”
“Even though it’s a whole peninsula, we just kind of go off that riff of ‘Span-ish,’ expanded Chef Bernal. “That way, I think we can just have a lot of fun with the food. Adam is very open about everybody having their influence on a dish, or having their opinion validated on a dish. We’re such a small team, right? So, I think the menu is very fluid in that way.”
Spanish and Portuguese cuisine have a way of being a little more flexible than some others. It’s that idea that has really fostered Branz’s tendency to push the boundaries even in a more elevated setting. But even in the historically more rigid cuisines – like French food – Branz and his talented team of chefs are finding ways to reinvent dishes and expectations. Until recently – at the mercy of the finicky and fragile construct of the food truck, Branz and Tittle were operating their very unique take on late-night French cookery.
“Cul-De-Sac, in my head, went back many, many years. When I was working at Bistro, I wanted a little bit more elbow room with French cuisine. I was obsessed with this idea of French barbecue. I thought this was the greatest idea in the world. I wanted to take Texas style barbecue and merge it with French food. Beef Bourguignon, but with Terry Black’s brisket. I carried this idea around forever, until I bought this cookbook by a Canadian chef named Joe Beef, and as I was flipping through it, I got on a chapter that said, French barbecue. It broke my heart. I never talked about it again until Cam and I were ripping Fernet shots and beers one night, and I told him about the idea. It obviously resonated with him because months later, we’re at Dewey Beer in RiNo and the owner said that they needed to get a food program started, and that they wanted to do a food truck with us. Cam came up to me and said, let’s do Sleazy French Food.”
“The idea morphed to taking classical French food and kind of looking at it through the Split Lip lens. So how can we change it? How can we make it unique? How can we make it craveable? And really, how can we just have fun doing it?”
After some experimentation, it all turned into a menu pretty quickly. Escargot Wontons with Sauce L’Orange, Deep Fried Ratatouille and Duck Confit Quesadillas were just a few of the French staples that were dressed down in all the right ways. After some dysfunction with the truck, it all got put on pause just as fast.
“I love the creative process. I love talking to the team about here’s this idea, and what can we do with it,” mused Branz on the process of menu creation. “Megan and I today were having a conversation on the Basque cheesecake and how we can turn it into a cookie. There’s a loose form of an image in my head of this Basque cheesecake that she took and just started tweaking. Alex and I talked today about Korean rice cakes in paella form, and how can we incorporate those flavors. Cam and I talked today about Banh Mi but as a salad. We talked about a halal salad and having the falafel as a crouton. It’s that process that wreaks all these rewards. Putting as much emphasis into that process as I do does translate to the guests, of course, but they’re not my ultimate priority. That’s part of our job. That’s why I do it. You fuck up more dishes than you perfectly execute. But it’s what makes our job fun – letting it come to fruition.”
For Split Lip, that process is leading to a more Colorado-based menu coming soon. “Keeping it Colorado protein, and things that just feel very Colorado. You got your green chilies, your produce from Colorado, just everything Colorado. Keep it on par with what Number 38 is going for,” said Tittle.
For Ultreia, that process is leading to a focus on the midday menu, more development of Spanish Pintxos, and an emphasis on the commuter traffic of Union Station. “I’m very passionate about this area in downtown. And it’s been kind of having a hard time lately. If we can embrace it, and try to breathe more life back into it, it would be a very good start for sure,” said Alex Mackenzie.
For the future if Cul-De-Sac, it’s all about getting the process going again. “I would like to pop it up again at a couple of bars and see how it does. And just see if we can find a more positive space for it. I’d like to bring it back in a dive bar atmosphere in particular. I think it fits very well in that sort of, call it highbrow, lowbrow, if you will. A bucket of highlife and Steak Frites makes sense to me,” ruminated Tittle.
“We’re also setting up a Spanish Bodega inspired Grab & Go here in Union Station. So that’ll come up in a few months,” added Branz, always pulling a new idea into frame and into reality.
“At the end of the day, the reason I wanted to bring everybody to the table was because if I can’t make all this happen on my own, why should I be able to speak to it on my own? How do you balance your day? How do you find room for creativity? I can speak for hours on all of that. But, it’s just these people at the table, and I think that’s the case for anybody that’s in any kind of like leadership role. You’re only as good as the team you have around.”
“I know that’s cheesy as fuck, but it’s really true. Everybody here is fantastic, and I love all these guys and that’s how it works. As far as creativity, the only way it works for me is to just continuously ask questions. If you stay curious with every single thing that pops in your head, and you aren’t embarrassed, it’s kind of cool what can come out the other side.”
Ultreia is located inside Union Station at 1701 Wynkoop Street, Denver. Its hours are Monday – Thursday 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. for Lunch and 3:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. for Dinner. Friday 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. for Lunch and 3:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. for Dinner. Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. for Brunch and 3:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. for Dinner. Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. for Brunch and 3:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. for Dinner.
Split Lip is located inside Number 38 at 3560 Chestnut Place, Denver. Its hours are Tuesday 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. for Lunch. Wednesday – Friday 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. for Lunch and 4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. for Supper. Saturday 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. and Sunday 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
All photography by Evan Dale & Bekah Shull.