One of best restaurants in the world is coming to Denver for two days. Here’s why that matters.

First the good news: One of the best restaurants in the world is coming to Denver!

El Celler de Can Roca, run by the Roca brothers in Girona, Spain, has a not-too-shabby three-Michelin star rating and was named the best restaurant in the world in 2015 (and made the top three each of the past five years). Reservations for the year sell out in minutes.

An El Celler pop-up — sure to feature the multicourse, molecular gastronomic edible art that the restaurant is famous for — will be held Nov. 1 and 2 at the Halcyon Hotel. Denver is its only U.S. destination this year.

Pretty cool, right?

Now the bad news: You can’t come. The dinners, sponsored by BBVA Compass, are invite-only.

Here’s why telling you about a restaurant like El Celler de Can Roca coming to Denver is important, and why you should care even though you can’t actually, you know, eat the food.

Last year, El Celler did a five-week international pop-up tour. While the original Catalan restaurant was closed, an entourage of sous-chefs, cooks and other restaurant staff traveled to London, Hong Kong, Santiago, San Francisco and — wait for it — Phoenix to create the outlandish meals the Spanish restaurant is known for.

By choosing Denver as the only U.S. stop this time around, we’ve been marked as an important city not only for capital potential, but for food. Denver probably wouldn’t have registered on a who’s-who list of food cities even a couple years ago, but things are changing for us.

When I asked a BBVA Compass spokesperson how Denver got picked this year, he said that the bank chooses markets where they have a presence and then speaks with the Roca brothers to see what they think. When the bank suggested Denver, the restaurant team was very willing to travel to Colorado, scout out and try our local products and create a unique menu.

Denver is becoming noticed globally, and with that comes really amazing opportunities — like hosting an El Celler pop-up or filming a season of “Top Chef” or going into debt filling our mouths with whatever the latest and greatest fancy restaurant is feeding us.

This pop-up dinner by one of the most esteemed restaurants in the world is another mark that we’ve arrived. Proof, if we needed or wanted it, that Denver is a true dining destination. Not on par with a New York or a Chicago or a San Francisco, but we’ve got something here, and it’s getting bigger.

I’m sorry you can’t taste El Celler’s food and enjoy the dinner. I hate writing about inaccessible things that everyday people can’t experience. But the best restaurant in the world coming to Denver is news and it means something to our city. After all, Denver’s dining ascension is something everyone can experience.

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