I travel to Denver regularly and I’m always looking for food recommendations. Cherry Cricket was HIGHLY recommended by people in my office and after 5 seconds looking at their website I understood why. There’s no shortage of burger restaurants in the world, let alone Denver, but they tend to fall into a few categories. General Fast Food, Simple/Traditional, or Extravagant. Cherry Cricket is in the “Extravagant” category where more is more.

The menu is full of creatively constructed signature burgers where the toppings follow a theme. With a half-pound patty and a long list of toppings, these are hefty burgers. If you’re not inspired by the signature burgers on the menu, you can build your own with whatever toppings combo you desire. As a first-timer I thought it would be best to stick to a fan favorite, and the most recent favorite was something called the “Cry Baby”. It features a 1/2 pound patty, crostini, swiss cheese, caramelized onions, house-made cheese frico, crispy onion strings, and a french onion schmear. It also came with a cup of french onion soup that I attempted to use as a dipping condiment (like au jus). I had trouble holding the burger, but it looked amazing.

What I’ll say is that you have to be an onion lover to appreciate this burger. It’s a ridiculous amount of onion across four formats (caramelized, crispy, schmear, and soup). I felt like I had put on onion scented aftershave…the smell didn’t leave my nose the rest of the night. Don’t take that as a criticism, take it as a warning. The burger was delicious, but it’s a choice that will remain with you for the rest of your day. I thought the burger was delicious, but my personal preference leans towards smaller and more manageable burger combos. Half-pound of beef was too much for me, and I would have been happy with 1/3 pound. Also, I think I would have liked one of the other burgers more, and I’d be curious to Frankenstein my own. The possibilities are endless.

The fries get a lot of praise here as well, so when I saw that they offer both regular fries and steak fries I decided to try everything. I’m usually not a steak fry guy, but I can keep an open mind. The basket of fries must have come directly out of the fryer because I temped them at 176 degrees. That’s hot! The regular fries were 8mm thick, had some skin on, and a steakhouse style seasoning blend. I’m not positive that these are house cut, but they the texture makes me think that they might be. They were fairly crispy, but didn’t have a discernible crust. They also lost integrity rapidly as they cooled. I’ll still say that these are above average fries, but I’m picky.

The steak fries didn’t disappoint, but that’s because I didn’t expect them to be amazing. My problem with steak fries is that they tend to be very starchy, and unless you have a lot of cheese and other toppings to go with them, they’re never going to be great. These were good steak fries, but still steak fries. Even though I ate them second, they were still incredibly hot! My recommendation is to stick with the regular fries and make sure you get a dipping sauce or two. My waiter recommended the chipotle aioli, and it was fine. If my appetite were endless I would have gone for the green chili cheese fries instead.

My beverage paired very nicely with the rich burger and starchy fries. It was a mocktail called “Feliz Fizz” that was made with Gruvi sparkling rosé, a strawberry shrub, and basil. It was tart, and punchy, and the basil really rounded it out with a touch of herby freshness. It’s a simple mocktail, but incredibly effective. I’d like to make a punch around this concept for a party because I think it’s extremely approachable and refreshing.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to Cherry Cricket and I get the hype. I couldn’t finish my burger, and I definitely couldn’t finish my fries, so it might not be the best place to eat by yourself. But, there’s enough space for big groups, and the menu has something delicious for everybody. They also got bonus points for not saying that I was insane for putting my fries in a kittle tea kettle that I had brought with me. I did it to get a photo for a different post, but it honestly did work very well as a french fry receptacle.