$$$$
★★★★★
Written by Maria Rodriguez | May 3, 2025
There are restaurants that aim to impress, and then there’s Frasca, which doesn’t need to try. It’s the place I take people when I want to prove Boulder isn’t all hemp milk and tech bros in Patagonia vests. Founded by master sommelier Bobby Stuckey and chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, Frasca has spent the last two decades calmly collecting accolades like it’s no big deal: multiple James Beard Awards, a Michelin star, and the kind of quiet reverence usually reserved for temples and vinyl shops.
The concept is Friulian cuisine, though I’ve long suspected that’s a polite way of saying “this will be the best pasta of your life and you will not recover.” The tasting menu leans northern Italian—polenta with white truffles, beef carpaccio with a delicate aioli.
But the details are where things turn obsessive. The silverware is placed just so, the staff will somehow remember your cousin’s gluten allergy from three visits ago, and Bobby might stop by your table with a Barolo you didn’t ask for but now suddenly need.
The space is understated, which is perfect, because it makes the food the show-off. On my last visit, I had a ricotta gnudi that was light enough to float but still managed to taste like something a dairy farmer’s nonna made by hand at sunrise. That’s the thing about Frasca: it makes you feel like you’ve stumbled into a region of Italy that doesn’t exist on any map, where the wine always matches the dish and nobody rushes you to finish.
It’s not cheap. But then again, spiritual revelations rarely are. If you’ve only got one night in Boulder, this is where you spend it—and not just for the pasta, but for the feeling that, for a couple hours at least, you’ve figured something out.
With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a frequenter of a restaurant near you, wherever you are. She has a knack for finding the best pastry in a new city, a talent that makes her popular among her coworkers.
