Mile High homage: Chef honors his native Plymouth with The Plimoth restaurant

It’s beyond unusual to discover a tribute to Plymouth history in one of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods. But there on the corner of East 28th Avenue and Josephine stands The Plimoth, a cozy 40-seat eatery housed inside a 1920s red-brick storefront.

It should come as no surprise that the Mile High homage to America’s Hometown is the doing of a native who grew up on Kings Pond Plain Road, riding dirt bikes in Plymouth’s cranberry bogs.

Chef Peter Ryan opened his restaurant in 2013, crafting a menu of new American fare – cooked with fresh, local ingredients – reflecting his upbringing in the birthplace of Thanksgiving in 1621.

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“We tip our hat to Massachusetts whenever possible,” Ryan says. That means serving hometown specialties such as sea scallops from New Bedford, mussels from the Cape, “stuffies” (stuffed quahogs) and Mom’s clam “chowdah” – spelled to capture the Boston accent, which Ryan still sports. “It really comes out after a couple of drinks,” he says with a laugh.

Speaking of pronunciation and spelling, some diners go so far as to question the restaurant’s name, claiming it is a mistake.

“I have to explain the old-school spelling, then I tell them the story about Gov. Bradford, the Pilgrims and the 1600s ... and then some still get tongue-tied saying ‘Ply’ and ‘Moth’ and I’m like ‘No. It’s just Plymouth.’”

The restaurant is a reminder of how the 400-year-old story of the town is woven into the lives of South Shore natives.

“Whenever there is cranberry-something on the menu, someone says, ‘He’s from Plymouth and it’s the epicenter of the cranberry world.’ The servers love to tell the story of how I grew up next to the bogs and would play in the bogs and accidentally light them on fire when I was kid.”

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Ryan, a 1989 graduate of Plymouth South High School, spends every Thanksgiving at The Plimoth, one of the only restaurants serving dinner in the Denver area that day that is not “Chinese food or a hotel.”

“We’re called The Plimoth, so we have got to be open on Thanksgiving. I don’t make the classic turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, but I will do specials like butternut squash bisque … something with cranberries.”

On last year’s menu were roasted squash soup, Plimoth stuffing, cranberry butter, sea scallops, duck magret, filet mignon and Honeycrisp apple and pear strudel for dessert.

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Over the summer, Ryan hosted a trio of six-course New England “suppahs” at The Plimoth. On the menu were lobster, monkfish, clams, scallops, chowder and whoopie pies for dessert.

“The first dinner sold out in 12 minutes and the next sold out in 20. People were like this is such an authentic deal coming from a guy who’s from the area. ... People in Denver like the East Coast. They don’t like Tom Brady all that much, or the Patriots, but they like the East Coast. There’s something about it. There’s some romantic notion of, ‘Let’s go to The Plimoth and eat like a New Englander.’ ”

Ryan does more than just savor the flavor of Yankee home cooking. He celebrates cuisines from around the world, offering many specialty dinners, such as South American food for a springtime “Andean Fiesta,” or Italian fare for an “Italy from Toe to Thigh” event, or a feast of French food for a “Night in Burgundy.”

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Inside The Plimoth, its rustic décor includes loads of natural light, exposed vintage brick, reclaimed fir countertops and its original drugstore tile motif. The space was also "a record shop and then a kind of neighborhood church of sorts," Ryan said.

Restored streetcar rails from the old 28th Street trolley system act as footrests along the bar and counter. It’s an airy gathering place with 40 seats, including 15 at the bar with additional tables on the brick patio.

But if you want to catch the Patriots or Red Sox on TV, you’ll have to go elsewhere – or find Ryan watching the hometown teams on an iPad in the back of the eatery. Sometimes it gets loud.

“Everybody wants to know why the guy in the kitchen is screaming,” he said.

The roots of Thanksgiving traditions are the focus of a living-history exhibit at Plimoth Patuxet titled “We Gather Together.” Thanksgiving started in Plymouth, then spread across the Colonies as an annual harvest feast. In the 1800s, settlers migrated the tradition to the Midwest and beyond to make it what it is today. And Ryan is proud to be a part of it.

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“What’s cool is seeing the same people every year,” Ryan said. “Every Thanksgiving, I gladly work. That’s my tradition. People come here every year and it’s not the same meal, but coming here is how they celebrate. I’m grateful for that.”

Ryan returns to Plymouth every summer to see his family, a visit that includes barbecues and stops at local restaurants for “chowder, lobster rolls, fried bellies, steamers, halibut, haddock … I get my fill when I’m there,” he said.

Ryan, the youngest of three siblings, attended Federal Furnace Elementary School and Plymouth Community Intermediate School. As it turns out, he’s the only male in his family who didn’t become “a cop, correctional officer, firefighter, EMT, Coast Guard, Marine or Army.” His father is a retired Marine and state trooper.

“That was a pretty fun house to grow up in,” he says with a hint of Boston sarcasm.

Ryan began his career in hospitality after being kicked out of UMass-Lowell. His mom, Maggie, a 5-foot-2 “firecracker” from Dorchester, told him to work in a restaurant.

“She said I’ll always be able to find work and never go hungry.”

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He followed her advice.

In 1999, Ryan finally headed west, enrolled in the inaugural class of Cook Street School of Culinary Arts and stayed there for a decade, joining the faculty after he finished his studies. As a chef at Z Cuisine, a French restaurant, he earned a nomination for Rising Chef of the Year from Denver Magazine. He came close to opening Denver’s first gastro pub, but that venture fell apart. At The Plimoth, Ryan is as happy as the clams he has shipped in from Duxbury, which he uses for his mom’s chowder.

“She always finishes it with a big knob of butter on top, a crack of black pepper and a little piece of baguette,” he said. “People who come here from the East Coast always ask, ‘Who made this?’ They’ll walk up to me and say it tastes like home.”

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Reach Dana Barbuto at dbarbuto@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Plymouth chef serves a dash of hometown history at Plimoth restaurant