Eats & Beats: Cart-Driver simple

interview with Kelly Whitaker

Accolades keep rolling in for one of the new, smaller eateries.  Chef Kelly Whitaker of Cart-Driver (and Boulder’s Basta) sat down with Steve Chavis and Arturo Gomez to show off some of his simple culinary magic for the Wednesday food feature on the KUVO morning show, called “Eats and Beats.”

“Our menu is divided into two places: pizza and etcetera.  Your oyster, your toast program, your mortadella hotdog, and gelato – everything else fits in that last category.  Our menu’s pretty short and sweet.”

“Our only cooking instrument here is the wood-fired oven, so we like to let every part of our menu touch that.  Our bar snacks: mixed nuts slightly roasted, some house-marinated olives and peppers, long fermentation kimchi, and pickles from The Real Dill in Denver.”

“We’re in a very competitive market.  What I love is that we have everything in this neighborhood (RiNo), and we have so much more coming.  Why don’t we do just a few items?  It’s OK to just be that one thing and do it well.”

Listen to the interview above to catch a bit of Kelly’s intensity about the wood they use for their stove, and everything else.