Alma Fonda Fina chef debuting restaurant in Cherry Creek

Johnny and Kasie Curiel, the team behind LoHi’s Alma Fonda Fina, are opening Alteño in Cherry Creek on March 17. (Courtesy Alteño)

Johnny Curiel got his start in the food industry at 14, dishwashing for his father’s restaurant.

On Monday, the 33-year-old, Michelin-star chef will open the doors to Alteño, his fourth concept, on the ground floor of Cherry Creek’s Clayton Hotel & Members Club.

Curiel, who opened Alma Fonda Fina in LoHi in 2023, said the restaurant is an ode to his father and the beachside meals they enjoyed growing up. 

Alteño replaces Kini’s, the Mediterranean joint that closed in December at 249 Clayton St.

“I remember Sundays being an activity with the family, a place where my family would spend the whole day … enjoying conversations, family time and music,” Curiel said. “That style is what we want to focus on here.”

The 4,000-square-foot restaurant will feature a menu of delicacies from his home state of Jalisco in Mexico. The name Alteño translates to “highlander,” a nod to the more mountainous parts of the region where he grew up.

Curiel is particularly excited for pan de elote, a cornbread-based dish, queso fundito, a cheesy Jaliscan dip, and barbacoa tatemada, a whole-lamb shank charred in the restaurant’s hearth.

Each is something he remembers from restaurants run by his father, who is still a chef in Jalisco.

“Opening Alma was an ode to my mom. The person that she was, the dishes that were always on the table,” he said, noting his mom’s name is Alma, which means “soul” in Spanish. “Now, I’m telling my dad’s side of the story with Alteño.”

The raw bar inside Alteño. (Courtesy Alteño)

Curiel said Alteño has been in the works since early fall, when he and his wife Kasie, who runs the hospitality side of the operation, had a conversation with Matt Joblon, CEO of Cherry Creek development firm BMC Investments. His firm developed and owns the Clayton.

The couple have since revamped the space to include a raw bar, private event room and 16-person patio. The front of the restaurant also has doors that slide open, Curiel said. The look was created in collaboration with Agatha Jane Interior Design.

“When you think of a campestre restaurant, you think a lot about the region, what makes Los Altos of Jalisco what they are,” he said, noting that campestre encapsulates a rural and rustic feel. “A lot of paintings and clay, the people who sing mariachi, lots of leather interior, blown glass and the setting of tables just being outdoors or feeling like we’re outside.”

The bar inside Alteño. (Courtesy Alteño)

Curiel said they didn’t look at any other sites for a second concept, calling it the perfect space and neighborhood. His wife “made her roots in Denver” by overseeing Hillstone and Cherry Creek Grille while general manager of Hillstone Restaurant Group from 2015 to 2020. 

And Curiel said he had been looking for his next restaurant to have a hearth ever since cooking with one last summer.

“It brought me flashbacks of cooking with live fire in Mexico. I even made a joke to Kasie that the next restaurant we open will have to have a hearth in it,” he said. “When things are meant to be, they’re meant to be.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated how many restaurants Curiel has opened. This is his fourth concept.