Yuan Wonton

Review Highlights

The New York Times sends critic Brian Gallagher to Denver's Park Hill neighborhood as part of compiling its annual list of the 50 best restaurants in America. Yuan Wonton lands on the 2024 list barely a year after chef-owner Penelope Wong made the leap from food truck to brick-and-mortar. Gallagher frames the restaurant around Wong's technical command of handmade doughs and a rotating menu that draws on Hong Kong, Sichuan, and Thai traditions — asking, in effect, what happens when a cult-favorite food truck gets a real kitchen.

• ·YW OG Wontons in Sichuan Chile Oil — Hong Kong-style wontons filled with pork and shrimp, wrapped in yellow egg dough and dressed with Sichuan chile oil and house sauce. Gallagher notes the doughs are all "expertly constructed with handmade" care.
• ·Tom Kha Chicken Wontons — Wong's cross-cultural take that routes the Thai coconut-galangal soup through a dumpling format, with chicken-filled wontons standing in for the traditional rice noodles. Part of the rotating selection Gallagher celebrates for its variety.
• ·Chinese Chive Pockets (Jiucai Hezi) — pan-fried pockets of flour-and-water dough filled with garlic chives, tofu, and cellophane noodles. A vegan item on a menu where several choices rotate regularly.
• ·Steamed Chashu Pork Bao — fluffy steamed buns filled with Chinese barbecue pork. One of the rotating items Gallagher highlights as evidence of Wong's range beyond wontons.
• ·Jok (Chinese Congee) — the dish Gallagher calls the hero of his visit: a warming rice porridge with chicken, ginger, and pickled bird's-eye chile. He describes "a warming, nervy duet of ginger and pickled bird's-eye chile that made the dish hum."

The New York Times names Yuan Wonton one of the 50 best restaurants in America in 2024, validating Wong's transition from food truck darling to brick-and-mortar destination. Gallagher's assessment rests on the technical precision of Wong's handmade doughs and the breadth of a menu that moves fluidly between Hong Kong, Sichuan, and Thai influences — but he saves his highest praise for the jok, an unassuming congee elevated into something memorable.

About

Yuan Wonton is a dumpling-focused restaurant in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood, opened by chef-owner Penelope Wong in late 2023 after four years as one of the city's most popular food trucks. Wong, a Colorado native of Chinese-Thai-American heritage who grew up cooking in her family's Cantonese restaurant, was the first female and youngest executive chef at Glenmoor Country Club before launching Yuan Wonton in 2019. The brick-and-mortar space — flooded with natural light and open only for daytime hours Tuesday through Friday — has earned Wong a James Beard Awards finalist nod for Best Chef: Mountain and a place on The New York Times' 2024 list of the 50 best restaurants in America.