At the end of the interview with Chef Daniele Bolognini, Executive Chef of the Benzina restaurant in Denver, Colorado, he was kind enough to prepare a dish for my friend and I: homemade gnocchi with rabbit ragout, pickled squash, and fried sage. As he effortlessly prepared the dish, emulsifying chunks of butter into a rich sauce and crisping each gnocchi to an even golden brown, the beautiful dish came together. It was a delicious plate of food with a perfect balance between acid, salt, and richness. He also let us try some Panna Cotta with Saba, a reduction of the grape smush that remains after making wine. The Panna Cotta was light, perfectly sweet, and smooth. From the few dishes we tried, it was clear that Chef Bolognini was an expert at creating flavor and balance, and it’s no surprise that Benzina has been regarded as one of the best Italian restaurants in the city.
As a child, Chef Daniele Bolognini spent a lot of time in the kitchen helping his grandmother cook. One of Chef Bolognini’s fondest memories was helping her make homemade gnocchi and braised meats on Sunday mornings. These experiences were some of the first influences on Chef Bolognini’s culinary career. As a 14-year-old, he pursued a formal culinary education in San Pellegrino, Italy. Although he believes that he learned more about cooking whilst working in a restaurant rather than in culinary school, he does not regret his experience, as he was able to learn to speak both French and English there, as well as gain a better general knowledge about food. His education also opened additional doors in his life, including aiding him in his process of moving to the U.S.
Upon arriving to the States in 2011, Chef Bolognini found himself in Aspen, Colorado. His good friend from the same town in Italy had moved to Aspen prior, and Bolognini followed suit. There he began working as a Sous Chef at the restaurant Hostaria, a beloved Italian establishment that has operated in Aspen for over 25 years before closing in 2021. After spending 5 years in Aspen, working with some of the best chefs in the country, Bolognini relocated to Denver, where he began working at Acorn, considered one of the most respected and innovative restaurants in Denver at the time. There he began working as a Line Cook before being promoted to Sous Chef after a few years. He was then later promoted to Executive Chef during the Covid-19 Pandemic. However, due to business struggles during this unpredictable period, Acorn closed down permanently on September 8, 2020, 6 months after Chef Bolognini began his executive role.
As for many, the pandemic was a valuable time to pursue passion projects. For Bolognini, it was a period to reconnect with his love for pasta. From his home, he began a small business, selling a variety of pastas (tagliatelle, gnocchi, ravioli) and sauces to the people in his neighborhood. After a friend posted an ad on Facebook for his homemade pasta, Bolognini’s home business gained significant popularity. He describes that he “got crushed” with orders and in the span of one week, fifty different families reached out for his outstanding pasta and sauce. He describes the endeavor as being “super successful” and inspired him to do something similar later in his career.
As the COVID-19 restrictions started to be lifted, Bolognini found out about Benzina through a mutual friend. With the innovative team of restauranteur Brad Anderson and Brian Lockwood, a celebrated chef and consultant from Boulder, Colorado who has worked in some of the finest restaurants in the country, Benzina opened in May of 2021 in a beautifully remodeled building that used to be a gas station. Benzina’s focus was quality Italian cooking with a small menu consisting of pasta, pizza, salads, and a few meat options. Benzina takes the cake for some of the best pizza dough in Denver with a blend of spelt (a special flour made from wheat with a nutty flavor), semolina, double 00 (a very finely-ground wheat flour commonly used in Neapolitan-style pizza dough), and rye, as well as a required 72-hour fermentation process. The result: a light, airy, and chewy dough that crisps beautifully in the pizza oven. Everything else on the menu is also made from scratch; sausages, cheese, pasta, and practically everything else. Chef Bolognini states that the reason for this is that in Italy “even if you can find the best products, everyone is making their own things”. All ingredients are also sourced from local farms, Benzina’s house garden, or shipped directly from Italy. In general, Benzina maintains an incredibly high level of ingredients which is very apparent in all their dishes.
Even though Chef Bolognini spends many hours a week cooking in a restaurant kitchen, he still cooks fantastic Italian cuisine for his family. One of his favorite dishes, and his kids’, is ‘Aglio Olio e Peperoncino’- spaghetti with garlic, oil, and chili pepper. Outside of the home kitchen, some of his favorite restaurants include Barolo Grill, Tavernetta, Frasca, Cho Lon, and Matsuhisa. However, Bolognini believes that “it’s hard to find good restaurants… it’s easy to find mediocre restaurants”. He explains that an exceptional restaurant stands out by its ability to find “equilibrium” in a dish between acid, salt, and fat.
Chef Bolognini has really enjoyed his time at Benzina and is cooking the food he likes. He plans on staying there for the foreseeable future, but would also like to own a small shop of his own where he could sell homemade pasta and sauce to the local community.
Thank you to Chef Bolognini for taking the time to meet with me and sharing some of his incredible Italian cooking!
If you enjoyed this article in the Culinary Interview Series, check out my last article with Paul Tamburello, the owner of Little Man Ice Cream.