Click on a cuisine above or a category on the side to find a restaurant to dine at tonight!
Pricing Key
Each $ = $10, $$ = average meal $20, $$$ = $30, $$$$ = $40, $$$$$ = $50, etc.
| Escape Restaurant 221 E. Main St. Aspen, Colorado 81611 F.K.A. Explore Bistro View Map (970) 925-5338
Restaurant Menus Escape Lunch Menu Escape Dinner Menu Escape Wine & Drinks Restaurant Description A complete renovation of the old Explore Bistro above Explore Booksellers transforms the space into a modern dining room. A large expansion of the kitchen and a new Chef allows the culinary of this Aspen vegetarian resturant to head in a new direction. Chef Johnny Alamilla Visit website | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reviews of Escape Restaurant OVERALL RATINGS
Add Your Review January 24, 2010 Overall Rating:  Love the space but miss the old menu!
January 12, 2010 Overall Rating: This is Aspen's little secret so I shouldn't be blabbling. What a great haven Escape is. Perfect for a business lunch, "doing lunch" with a friend, or a quiet special get-away. My college vegan daughter was just home for 3 weeks and we ate there several times-everytime...very satisfied. There is a diversity of food-the beet and butter lettuce salads are not to miss; the angel hair marinara comes on a refreshing bed of veggies, the homemade veggie burger with sweet potato fries will satiate any need for comfort food. Every day brings an excellent soup/chili-the vegan chile is very good and filling. This is one of the most relaxing and rejuvenating places ("up in the trees" with a mottled sun streaming through) in Aspen. Just GO, you will be glad there is a special place like this.
January 8, 2010 Overall Rating: wonderful menu, different vegetarian food selections beautifully presented .Very tasty ,lunch and dinner.reasonable prices. Very healthy too . try it you will be surprised.
December 26, 2009 Overall Rating: I went with a friend to try the new Escape after they remodeled and gave the place a facelift. If only they'd kept the good parts of the menu! Nothing was awful, but this is no longer the place I take friends to prove how amazing vegetarian can be. The friend I went with got a "sandwich" which was basically tofu on toast. No veggies, no sauce, nada. It came with yam fries (pretty good) and black bean soup(bland), but that didn't make up for the price paid for the meal. I got a beet salad (which was good) and pasta (which was bland and unexciting). From now on I'm going to the Cantina (also on Main Street) and getting the Vegan Tower or veggie enchiladas (and their tasty (not bland!) vegetarian black bean soup). Previously such a fan of the Explore Bistro! :( Maybe they're just getting on their feet again after the remodel, but they've been open since the summer season. I did notice the tostadas that I loved from the previous Explore are still on the menu, maybe they managed not to ruin those. Prices are comparable to other restaurants in Aspen (which you get used to if you live here).
August 6, 2009 Overall Rating: Explore aka Escape, has gone (if memory serves me) from a tiny tea salon, to a cafe, to a veggie resto to an "expanded menu" place serving sustainable fish. Colette knew in her heart that I might hate this place and tried to warn me off, but I blundered in/on, knowing that I had to test the waters. We came after a glorious Beethoven 7th conducted by the energetic, smiling, intelligent, sage but still young conductor Peter Oundjian - a great contrast to the recent limpingly awful treatment of Beethoven by old tired formerly demanding David Zinman who seems wedded to pissing off old farts by programming stuff that would never fly in Zurich. Alors, back to Escape. Colette ordered the gazpacho, which was fair, and grilled eggplant with uncooked veggies, a dish so tasteless that she, she, ordered some soy sauce which helped 15%. I, on the other hand, had two of my favorite dishes in the world - fried calamari and braised greens; the calamars were tough as sh** and the greens with crasins and supposedly sunflower seeds, were so what. John Talbott's Paris With a bottle of wine our bill was $75.76.
July 3, 2009 Overall Rating: Disappointing for a vegetarian to see Explore become "veg-centric" and serving seafood. Many of the veg staples are gone, including most of the comfort foods such as tofu, brown rice and veggies. Prices seem higher, and portions seem smaller. Food is still good, but I doubt that Explore will continue to be the go-to restaurant for the veg community.
June 25, 2009 Overall Rating: After driving 14 hours that day, we had dinner here. The ambiance was top notch. The service was impeccable. The food was innovative and tasty. The presentation was excellent as well. What a delight. The server was a bit nervous when she found out that my son was preparing our dinner for us that night as well they had only been open a short time but I was very impressed with the visit. Even the picky 12 year old enjoyed her meal and that is no small fete! To respond to the reviewer who spoke of the calamari being subpar, I consider myself something of a calamari expert and quite often use it as my standard for a restaurant review. I've eaten calamari all over the world in fact and this was prepared nicely and not at all rubbery as is often the case. Kudos Es-cape!
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
