COME TO LIFE to name the restaurant after the area’s moniker: Hop Alley. “I think, ultimately, a lot of chefs are feeling the same way of wanting to create a place that they want to go to,” Lee said, naming the biggest change in Colorado’s culinary scene over the past few years as the rise of the minority restaurant owner’s voice through their food. “They’re not afraid to keep things authentic,” Lee added. “They’re creating the cuisine that they grew up with and that they’re familiar with, and presenting it in a modern way that’s not necessarily compromising to American palates.” “I think it’s cool that it’s become dynamic and diverse as far as people sticking to their guns of what they really want to do, which is always a hard business decision of ‘are people really going to like this?’” For James Beard Best Chef: Mountain category semifinalist Mawa McQueen, cooking up her Afro-Mediterranean cuisine with French-American flair in Aspen and Snowmass was a risk that nearly drove her to give up her life’s passion. However, her flagship restaurant Mawa’s Kitchen earned its Michelin Guide Recommended distinction in 2023, lauded as delivering “extraordinary quality with everyday value.” Her signature must-tries fuse her French and African roots, like chicken Mafee, a West African peanut curry with charred cauliflower and forbidden rice, or Jollof Fonio with roasted summer vegetables, spicy African red sauce and chili crunch. Meanwhile, Mawa’s seafood gumbo with andouille sausage, chicken, shrimp, crawfish, okra and foufou caught the attention of the Michelin Guide inspector’s palate with its use of bold spices. “[Aspen is] basically the worst place to put a restaurant like this. It would be great in Denver, but I was in Aspen and I was sick and tired of steakhouses and sushi, and I thought we need more culture,” McQueen said. “I had to be true to myself. People finally embraced it and it became a success.” The chef was inspired to come to the mountain town after seeing an episode of “The Young and The Restless.” “When I saw Aspen, it looked like a Hallmark Channel movie,” McQueen said. “It was such a magical moment that it just stuck with me.” At the time, she was just a kid living in France with the idea of pursuing the American dream. She vowed that she would one day come to America and visit Aspen as part of her bucket list. And years later, she found herself splitting her time between working summers in Maine and winters at The Little Nell in Aspen, falling in love with the warmth and magic of the small community. After years of back-and-forth, she finally decided to make the Hallmark mountain town her home. “When I arrived in Aspen, it was even better than what I thought it was,” McQueen said. She kickstarted her own catering service as a private chef, cooking modern American cuisine with a slight French flair for her clients by day, and going home to recreate the flavors of her upbringing by night. Growing up on the Ivory Coast in Africa and later living in a ghetto in Paris, her taste was heavily influenced by her Hop Alley in Denver 106 1-800-COLORADO ADAM BOVE
Colorado Official State Vacation Guide 2025: Page 106
