A Massaman Curry Shaped Like a Potato Is Coming to Cap Hill

Picture a massaman curry shaped like a potato. Not served with potatoes. Shaped like one. That is what Dom and chef Jay Anderson are putting on the menu at their new place, and honestly, that single detail tells you everything about what these two are doing.

So here is the story. The Andersons are the married couple behind Den Thai, the tapas and wine spot at 2200 Market Street in Five Points that opened in 2025 and already sits at a 4.4 on Yelp. That place is small plates and a wine list, the kind of spot where you order six things and keep stealing bites off your partner's side of the table. Great concept. But it is not the whole story of how chef Jay cooks.

The street food version

The new spot is called Den Thai Street, and it is landing at 800 Sherman Street in Capitol Hill, in the former Reckless Noodles space. This is the casual sibling. Where the original leans into the tapas format, Street goes the other direction. Think the food you actually eat on the street in Thailand. Faster, looser, built around the recipes chef Jay learned from his grandmother before he ever had a culinary career.

That grandmother angle is the part people miss when they just read "new Thai restaurant opening." This is not a second location stamped out of the first. Jay is cooking two things at once here. The flavors his grandmother taught him, and the technique he picked up working through his own career in kitchens. The potato-shaped massaman is where those two things crash into each other. It is a grandmother's recipe dressed up by a chef who clearly cannot help himself.

The planned menu leans into dishes you do not see on every Thai menu in town. There is kua gai, a stir-fried noodle dish. There is the massaman, obviously. And the crispy duck panang, which is one of the favorites carrying over from the original Den Thai, is making the trip to Sherman Street too. So if you already love that duck, good news, you do not have to drive to Market Street for it anymore.

What the space is going to feel like

The Andersons are keeping some of what was already in the Reckless Noodles room, including the existing mermaid décor, which is a sentence I did not expect to write today. On top of that they are adding red drapes, colorful ribbons, and warm lighting. So it should feel like a real room, not a counter-service box with fluorescent tubes buzzing over your head. Warm and a little theatrical, which fits food that is this specific.

Plan on both lunch and dinner. One thing worth knowing if you want to be an early regular. In the first few days they are expecting to run a break between the two services, so lunch ends, the kitchen resets, and dinner starts up later. That is a normal move for a new kitchen finding its rhythm. Just do not show up at 3pm that first week expecting a full menu.

When can you actually go

Here is the honest part. There is no exact opening date yet. The Andersons are still waiting on final permits while renovations keep going, and they are targeting an October 2026 debut. The Denver Post reported it could open as soon as October. So "this month" is the plan, with the usual asterisk that permits and contractors do what they do. If you have ever watched a restaurant try to open in Denver, you know the opening date is a moving target until the day the doors actually unlock.

The Cap Hill angle

And look, the location matters as much as the food. Sherman Street at 800 puts this right in the thick of Capitol Hill, one of the densest residential pockets in the whole city. This is renters, condo owners, old mansions chopped into apartments, people who walk to dinner. A casual street-food Thai spot with lunch and dinner service is exactly the kind of tenant that neighborhood actually uses on a Tuesday, not just a Saturday.

That is the quiet real estate read here. When an operator with a proven concept in Five Points plants a second flag on Sherman Street instead of chasing a suburban strip mall, that is a vote of confidence in Cap Hill foot traffic. The old Reckless Noodles space does not sit empty for long when the bones are good and the neighborhood eats out this much. Restaurants tell you where a part of town is heading before the listing prices do, if you ask me.

So two spots now. Den Thai on Market Street for the nights you want wine and small plates and a little occasion to it. Den Thai Street on Sherman for the nights you just want grandmother's cooking, a plate of kua gai, that crispy duck panang, and yes, a curry shaped like a potato.

I will be first in line for the potato. Hayley already knows. She has accepted it. Keep an eye on 800 Sherman this month.