Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
The Clayton Hotel at 233 Clayton Street has a reputation, and it is not a good one. Since it opened in 2021, the three public restaurant spaces inside that building have cycled through something like 11 different eateries. Eleven. People around Cherry Creek North started calling it a cursed address, and honestly, when you watch that many concepts come and go in four years, you start to believe it.
So here is what is actually happening there right now. Kelly Whitaker, the chef behind Colorado's only two-Michelin-star restaurant, decided to plant a flag on the roof.
This is the part people miss. That sixth-floor rooftop at the Clayton has always been there. But it was members only. If you were not part of the Clayton Hotel & Members Club, you were not getting up there, period.
That changed on July 8. Whitaker's new residency, called SHEEP, took over the sixth floor, and for the first time the Clayton is opening that rooftop to the public. Regular people. You. Me. Hayley, who has been asking me about this one for weeks.
It is a limited run. Three months, July 8 through October 4, 2026. Then it is gone.
Let me back up on why this matters. Whitaker runs The Wolf's Tailor at 4058 Tejon Street up in Sunnyside, and in 2025 that place became the first restaurant in Colorado to earn two Michelin stars. Two. That is the top of the mountain in this state. Nobody else has done it.
The catch with a place like that is the price and the wait and the whole occasion of it. So Whitaker told Westword he wanted an "abbreviated experience at a lower price point" to get the Wolf's Tailor idea in front of more people. That is SHEEP.
The four-course tasting menu starts at $95 per guest. And the courses are not called first, second, third. They are called Smoke, Ember, Flame, and then a rotating dessert called Ash. There is a fire theme running through the whole thing, which, sure, matches the name a little oddly, but stay with me because the food sounds incredible.
For each course you pick vegetarian, fish, or meat, with optional table supplements if you want to go bigger.
Here is a taste of what shows up. The "Smoke" course pairs heirloom tomato with smoked tomato jelly and frozen wasabi. "Ember" brings mackerel with tom kha cream and celtuce. "Flame" is corn juk with wild mushroom and truffle. And "Ash," the dessert, is Colorado melon sorbet with Thai basil jelly, vegan chocolate and sansho pepper.
That melon sorbet with the local melon is the kind of thing that makes me want to drive over there tonight.
SHEEP is not a one-man show. It is a collaboration. Whitaker is working with chef Taylor Stark, and the desserts come from Emily Thompson, the executive pastry chef at The Wolf's Tailor. So the Ash course is not an afterthought. It is coming straight from the pastry program at the two-star flagship.
Dinner runs nightly starting at 5 p.m. On weekends they add lunch, noon to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Reservations are on OpenTable, and walk-ins are welcome, which is generous for a rooftop tied to a two-Michelin-star team.
Now here is the thing about that cursed-address reputation. Whitaker is not the only heavy hitter the Clayton brought in to break it.
Downstairs, on the same July 8 day, Michelin-starred chef Johnny Curiel opened Tequilería Alteño, replacing a spot called Mar Bella. Curiel is the guy behind Alma Fonda Fina, and if you have eaten there you know he does not miss. So the hotel that could not keep a restaurant alive for more than a few months at a stretch just stacked two of Denver's most decorated chefs in the same building on the same day.
Two Michelin names betting on the one address in Cherry Creek that has buried concept after concept. If you ask me, that is the most interesting restaurant story in the neighborhood this summer.
Cherry Creek North is not hurting for money. That is not the question. The question has always been whether a specific building can hold onto a tenant, and the Clayton has been the local case study in what happens when it cannot. Every time a space turns over, it resets the block a little. The foot traffic pattern changes. The reason people walk past 233 Clayton changes.
Bringing in a two-star chef and a Michelin-starred chef at once is a bet that the right names can finally give this building an identity that sticks. Whether it works past October 4 is the open question, because SHEEP is a residency, not a permanent lease.
So here is my honest read. You have a three-month window to sit on a Cherry Creek rooftop that was locked to the public for years, eat four courses from the team behind the only two-Michelin-star restaurant in Colorado, and pay $95 to do it. That combination does not usually exist, and it especially does not exist at that price.
October 4 is the wall. After that, SHEEP is done and the rooftop story starts over.
Book it while you can. And save room for the melon sorbet.