Copyright Boulder Daily Camera
It’s 8 a.m., and Adam Moore has this writer questioning everything she thought she knew about breakfast. Specifically, her lifelong loyalty to the egg and cheese bagel, which has never once steered her wrong. But Moore, co-owner of Niwot’s new Fortezza Ristorante, located at 7916 Niwot Road, is making a compelling case for cured meat and melon: thin slices of 18-month aged prosciutto flown in from Italy, honey-fermented local melon, a handful of herbs from Estoterra farm in Brighton…By the time he finishes describing the dish, I’m halfway to convincing myself that cured meat and fruit is a perfectly sensible way to start the day. Moore and his wife, Natalie, opened Fortezza in late August in downtown Niwot. The restaurant serves modern Northern Italian food, where items on the menu feature handmade pasta, hyper-seasonal produce, and a steak program built around Colorado beef, in a setting that’s more refined than the town’s usual dinner rotation but still comfortable enough for a weeknight meal. “I’ve been working in Denver for almost 20 years, and we just kept thinking, why not here?” Moore said. “You shouldn’t have to drive to Boulder or Cherry Creek to have a great meal.” Moore spent more than two decades in the restaurant industry, including 10 years managing Barolo Grill in Cherry Creek. Every year, the staff there would shut down for two weeks and travel to northern Italy, a trip Moore made nearly a dozen times. On those trips, Moore and his team would travel through the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna , meeting with winemakers, producers and cheesemakers. “It really changes the way you see food when you get to watch people who’ve been doing it the same way for generations,” Moore said. “I went almost a dozen times over the years, and every trip changed how I thought about ingredients and hospitality.” Moore also worked in some of Denver’s best-known steakhouses, including Guard and Grace, Edge Restaurant & Bar and Quality Italian. Those two influences — northern Italy and the classic American steakhouse — collide nicely at Fortezza. “Fortezza” is Italian for “fortitude,” which sounds dramatic until you hear what the Moores went through to get here. Moore lost both parents, then watched his chance for an ownership deal at Barolo Grill slip away. And while most people might’ve taken that as a sign to take up a less tempestuous profession, like a librarian, Moore did the opposite: He decided to double down and, together with Natalie, the two opened up their own concept in a place that felt like home. “My wife and I both went to high school in Longmont, so we’re super familiar with the area, have a lot of friends here, and were drawn to the northern Colorado dining scene, which could use a few more destination restaurants,” Moore said. In the kitchen at Fortezza is chef Egan Ma, whom Moore met during his time at Barolo. Ma later joined Kelly Whitaker’s Boulder-based Id Est Hospitality Group — the team behind Basta, Bruto and Hey Kiddo — before reuniting with Moore to open Fortezza. “Egan is incredibly creative and inventive. He’s a great guy, and is so imaginative. He’s like a mad scientist in the best way, constantly experimenting and sourcing locally,” Moore said. That curiosity drives the kitchen, where the menu changes roughly every eight weeks, depending on what’s in season. The focaccia takes two days to make and starts with local flour that Moore says has more freshness and flavor than imported Italian flour. “I thought using Italian flour to make our bread would be a no-brainer,” Moore said. “But when it sits on a container ship for months, it’s not really what you want. The local stuff just works better.” The agnolotti di toma Piemontese — delicate little pasta pockets filled with a creamy toma cheese sauce and earthy porcini mushrooms, finished with chive oil — is meant to taste like fall on a plate. The bucatini alla carbonara uses housemade pasta and cured Italian guanciale, bound with egg jam (cured yolks) and a splash of balsamic to give it depth. “It’s kind of a Roman-meets-northern Italian thing,” Moore said. “Simple ingredients, done right, no cream.” The American Wagyu ribeye comes from Callicrate Beef in Colorado Springs, with a marbling score 11 — which is steakhouse speak for “ridiculously buttery.” It’s served as a 20-ounce cut for two, though you might want to keep your plate to yourself. “Even the fat tastes like candy,” Moore said. “It’s got that richness and texture that makes you want to share it, but also not share it.” The kitchen’s attention to detail runs through everything — even waste. When they realized they were discarding too much cauliflower stock, Ma turned it into a purée, whisked with herbs and aromatics, and now serves it as a quenelle-style sauce alongside the steak. “We’re trying to waste as little as possible,” Moore said. “Everything has potential.” The same thoughtfulness carries into the wine program. Moore built the Niwot spot’s list from his Barolo Grill experience, where he curated a Wine Spectator Grand Award-winning list, an honor that only 97 other restaurants in the world carry. At Fortezza, the focus is on northern Italian producers, alongside smaller Piedmont producers whose wines rotate by the glass — poured through a Coravin, which is a fancy gadget that lets you sneak a glass from the bottle without ever popping the cork. “We’ve had winemakers stop by on their way between Denver and the mountains,” Moore said. “It’s great seeing that here in Niwot. It means people are paying attention.” The list features Brunello, Barbera and Amarone wines, but Moore emphasized approachability. Guests can taste single pours of high-end wines, join occasional producer nights, or simply stop in for a glass and a plate of pasta. “We want people to be comfortable ordering what they like,” he said. “Wine shouldn’t feel exclusive.” Inside, the restaurant seats around 80, with another 40 on a European-style patio centered around a small fountain. The room hums quietly in the evenings, servers gliding between tables with plates of agnolotti and bowls of bucatini. The atmosphere lands somewhere between polished and familiar — the kind of place that knows when to refill your wine glass but never interrupts the conversation. “We wanted it to feel genuine,” Moore said. “You can come in for a glass of wine and a quick pasta or make it a full dinner. Either way, it should feel good.”
