Before Petit Chelou took over the chef’s counter at Hop Alley, chef Douglas Rankin owned Bar Chelou, one of the hottest restaurants in Los Angeles. Rankin’s unique blend of Asian, Spanish, and French influences earned the eclectic eatery national recognition. But when the devastating Eaton Fire swept through the county and into Pasadena last January, 2025, it made him reconsider whether he wanted to stay in town.
“We opened the restaurant to major acclaim, we had a really great team,” Rankin said. “It was a great two-and-a-half-year run.”
Prior to Bar Chelou, Rankin had made his mark in L.A.’s culinary scene at Silver Lake’s ‘neo-bistro,’ Bar Restaurant, which closed in June 2022 as a casualty of the pandemic.
“I needed a major change at that point,” he recalled. “I had opened two restaurants that I felt were great and people really enjoyed coming to, and with one of them, an invisible virus got me, and the other one, it was the fires.”
Hop Alley Connection
After a string of critically acclaimed restaurants and a series of unfortunate events, Rankin started to reconsider California altogether. His wife, who grew up in the Colorado suburb Greenwood Village, had been urging him to move to Denver for years. After deciding not to renew his lease at Bar Chelou, he began looking for jobs in Denver, and happened upon an executive chef role at a restaurant he was familiar with: Hop Alley.
“When we had kids eight years ago, we started taking the kids to Denver for holidays, and we would always eat out. A friend of mine at the time, she was a gourmand type, suggested we try Hop Alley,” Rankin recalled. “I remember going in and thinking this place is great, the energy is great, the food is great…it’s just a fun restaurant.”
After sending in his resume, Hop Alley owner Tommy Lee called Rankin within minutes. The two chatted for nearly two hours, and by the end of the call Rankin was making plans to meet the team.
“[Tommy] was like, ‘The counter is something that we have been working on for a while, and I think that you could do something there,’” he continued.
From there, Petit Chelou began to take shape, and the six seat concept has been operating since last October.
Six Seats, Six Courses
At the counter, which starts at $125 per person, Rankin cooks right in front of his guests, effortlessly moving between plating and conversation.
“I really enjoy the connection,” he said. “I love talking to people that are in front of me and joking with the people that come in. I think the banter that we have is a big part of it.”
The night begins with a humble bowl of crispy potatoes meant to be eaten with your hands, a deliberate choice by the chef to strip away any pretense from the experience. From there, the first course is served, a delicate kinmedai crudo in yuzu kosho and Rankin’s take on an Italian tonnato, which he reimagined with white anchovy in place of traditional tuna.
The next set of dishes demonstrate how Rankin treats vegetables with just as much reverence as protein dishes. For example, the kohlrabi comes presented as “noodles” in a nutmeg broth, and finely grated potatoes in a French soubise sauce, topped with aged cheddar and bonito flakes.
A dish that lends particular credence to Rankin’s process is the blue oyster mushroom tempura, It’s a recipe the chef painstakingly perfected using a blend of science and tradition, and the paired with a classic French meunière sauce, and finished with finely-grated cured egg yolk.
“Tempura was something that I became obsessed with at Bar Chelou, and really learning how to do it the correct way. So, I digested this paper from MIT that I found online by a professor who was just as obsessed as I was with Asian cuisine and how it worked molecularly,” Rankin explained. “I figured out a hybrid version of a recipe that I felt honored the tradition of [tempura] while keeping some of the scientific process in it, too.”
Optional supplements, which are constantly changing, reward diners’ curiosity with ingredients like tiny firefly squid, a spring delicacy in Japan which Rankin marinates in butter, miso, and koji, and serves with crosnes, small tuber vegetables with a nutty artichoke flavor.
“I look at it like an art project,” he expressed. “I’m looking at how I can make the guest feel just as much as what they’re tasting.”
At its core, Rankin’s cooking is about bridging gaps between cuisines, drawing inspiration from France to Japan to layer in richness in some places while demonstrating restraint in others.
“I think there’s some spots to fill in from each cuisine that work really well together…they fill in each other’s blanks in a way,” Rankin said, framing the concept as what a Japanese chef might present if he had to cook French food. “The exploration of this concept is really a mix of Japanese kaiseki in terms of how we’re plating dishes artistically, and a French degustation, which is the world that I came from, and mixing that together with omakase.”
Petit Chelou is just the start for Rankin in Denver. He eventually plans to revive Bar Chelou in his own brick-and-mortar spot, bringing the lively, neighborhood-driven concept to the Mile High City.
“We’ve been looking for like a while, it’s something that takes a long time,” he shared. “We’ve talked to brokers, but we’re really looking to find a financial partner in Denver that we can trust.”
But for now, he added, he wants to focus on the magic he’s cooking up at Hop Alley.
Petit Chelou is located at the chef counter inside of Hop Alley, 3500 Larimer St., Denver. It operates Thursday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. Make reservations here.
