If you file Trinity Grille under “Places You’ve Already Been and Don’t Need to Revisit,” you’ll have misfiled: Trinity Grille belongs under “Places That Deserve a Return Visit Every Now and Then.”
Located across the street from the venerable Brown Palace Hotel, Trinity Grille does the following things right:
• The room, which is at once spacious and cozy, has clubby appointments and comfortable seats.
• The service, which is at once familiar and efficient, features longtime staffers who know how to get business done.
• The atmosphere, which is at once busy and langorous, encourages long lunches filled with chatter and laughs.
Trinity Grille trumpets its crab cakes, and they are tasty crab cakes, though displaced Chesapeakers won’t cancel their trips home in favor of sticking around Trinity Grille. Steaks and soups and sandwiches have an almost retro quality, prepared with a homey flair (most dishes come with a starch and a veg) but served with downtown sophistication. Skip the pastas altogether (your pasta money is better spent elsewhere); instead, call for the satisfying Canadian walleye fillet with brown-butter hollandaise, or the boneless half-chicken cooked under a brick and served with potatoes and mushrooms.
Lunch is the Trinity’s sweet spot, but dinner is its best-kept secret — less crowded (usually) and more comfortable. Take full advantage this way: drinks at the Brown Palace (especially if John Kite is playing piano in the lobby), then a quiet supper at the Trinity Grille across the street.
Trinity Grille
American. 1801 Broadway, 303-293-2288, trinitygrille.com
