AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
At CAYA, the playlist reaches the table before the band does.
The new restaurant in Edwards, Colorado, opened July 13 with a bar program built around four housemade shrubs, each named for a song and worked into cocktails, mocktails, and dirty sodas. The Blackberry Way leans on blackberry and lavender. The Cordozar combines gin, elderflower, cucumber, white grape, and aquafaba. Live music follows on the patio every Friday through Sunday during the warmer months.
Porchetta panini
The name CAYA stands for “Come As You Are,” a reference to a song by Colorado-born jam band String Cheese Incident. It also describes owner JD Childress’ plan for the restaurant: lunch can be quick, dinner can stretch, and a table can fill with shared plates whenever the afternoon starts making other plans.
Chef Carlos Castro has built the menu around dishes that arrive with familiar outlines and a few turns along the way. Mussels come in a fennel jus with preserved lemon, confit tomato, and fresh herbs. Shrimp and grits brings together Creole shrimp, smoked pork belly, Anson Mills grits, and smoked tomato jus. A porchetta panini adds pickled fennel, broccolini, fresh mozzarella, and verde aioli.
Shrimp and grits
The summer melon salad may be the clearest expression of Castro’s approach. Watercress, feta, prosciutto, brown-butter crumbs, and strawberry vinaigrette turn a bowl of fruit into something capable of holding its own beside the porchetta.
Melon salad
All Eyez on Lime
“I start with a dish people already understand, then I build layers of flavor with techniques and ingredients that might come from another part of the world,” Castro said.
The menu will change with the seasons, while the beverage program follows the same ingredients-first rhythm. General manager Kenna Herrmann and bar manager Joe Cordova build the drinks with shrubs, syrups, infusions, and cordials made in-house. The four mocktails and four dirty sodas use the same shrub bases as the cocktails, which gives the zero-proof side of the menu more to work with than carbonation and good intentions.
Peach cobbler
CAYA seats about 125, including 60 on the patio and a private dining area for 25. Inside, white oak, dark steel, marble, brass, copper, and sage give the restaurant a warm mountain palette.
The music supplies the names. Castro’s cooking gives everyone something to talk over.
Ming and Courtney Pu open TANA, a Taiwanese New American restaurant.
By ERIC BARTON
