At Denver area eatery Latke Love, a potato tradition meets an unlikely twist. (Video by Skyler Ballard/ The Gazette)
LITTLETON • He always knew them as latkes, a symbolic food from his Jewish upbringing. She always knew them as potato pancakes, specialties of her non-Jewish grandmother.
Whatever you call them, they are a hit in this little house-turned-neighborhood eatery.
Steve and Tina Shander went with the name Latke Love for the restaurant they opened in 2015 here in this Denver suburb. But you are more than welcome to call them potato pancakes or fritters or whatever. Here where the Grateful Dead plays over the speakers along with other favorite jams of the Shanders, here where a little abode seems way too little for such beloved cuisine, there’s a sense that rules don’t apply.
Just take a glance at the menu. One of the names is Baleboosteh. That bowl of fried latkes — not the flat crisps you might have in mind from Hanukkahs past, but instead fist-shaped — is topped with slow-braised brisket, roasted carrots and gravy drawn from Guinness beer.
“That one’s been on TV twice,” Steve Shander says. Once on “Man vs. Food” and once on a show with a similar concept.
ABOVE: Owner and operator Steve Shander drizzles Carolina barbecue sauce over the smoked pulled pork on a customer’s Meshuggah order at Latke Love in Littleton.
“It was like ‘Best Places to Pig Out’ or something,” Shander says. “Which is an ironic thing for a deli like this, even though obviously we sell pork.”
Patrons pig out on pulled pork perfected by Shander at the smoker out back. The meat is drenched in his scratch-made Carolina barbecue sauce, and pickled red onion completes the latke bowl called Rabbi I’m Confused.
Shander smiles at the name. “Pretty much everything was built around that.”
He’s friendly and funny and seemingly more interested in talking about his recent concerts — guitar maestro Billy Strings last night and tonight — than he is in talking about his life and food journey. He doesn’t seem all that interested in more publicity. Maybe the TV shows and that frame on the wall from Yelp, declaring Latke Love the nation’s 27th best-reviewed eatery, and all of the other interviews have been enough. Enough, perhaps, to where he can regularly close the restaurant for catering and often leave around 3 p.m. on the four days it’s open, because he knows life should be more than work.
Shander budges a bit on Rabbi I’m Confused.
“It was just the questions I had when I was a kid, and rabbis couldn’t answer those questions,” he says. He shrugs. “Some things are the way they are because they are the way they are.”
Latkes are the way they are for not entirely clear reasons.
LEFT: Steve Shander puts a tray of latkes in the oven while prepping customers’ orders just after opening this month at Latke Love in Littleton.
Ultimately, it’s the fried oil that matters come Hanukkah — representing the miracle of oil burning eight nights in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. But historians have pointed to bird fat-rendered schmaltz being used in the Old World, not oil, and fried cheese being celebrated centuries before grated potatoes and onions.
Argued a report in The Atlantic: “Delicious? Yes. Traditional? Not in the slightest.”
None of that is of any concern to the Shanders, whose latkes are modified versions of Tina’s grandmother’s potato pancakes. In 2010, the couple started catering them and selling them at farmers markets.
“It was just a food item that we started making,” Steve Shander says. “And people just loved it.”
Owner and operator Steve Shander, who runs the restaurant with his wife Tina Shander, delivers orders to customers Geoff Bulson, left, and Sean Cushman just after opening on Thursday morning, Feb. 9, 2023, at Latke Love in Littleton, Colo.(Timothy Hurst/The Denver Gazette)
So much so that he realized he could open his own restaurant. Since arriving to Denver in a Volkswagen back in the ‘90s, he always had the idea of being his own boss. And with Latke Love, he could tap into culinary creativity he cultivated while working in the industry throughout his life. He would imagine highly unusual twists on the dish he knew as a kid growing up in a temple.
As for his relationship with faith today, “We don’t want to go there,” he says, smiling still.
“You know,” he says, “people always come in and ask me, ‘Is this a Jewish restaurant?’ And I’m like, ‘Restaurants don’t have religion.’”On the menu
Latke Love’s hearty bowls range between $10 and $15, all with four crispy potato latkes.
The Classic honors today’s traditional latkes, topped with homemade applesauce and cinnamon whipped cream. A favorite of owner Steve Shander’s is the Manhattan, with smoked salmon, dill cream, shaved red onion and capers. He says his green chili is too spicy for him, but regulars come back for Oy Vey Caliente, which combines the vegetarian or pork chili with cheddar and a fried egg.
Latke Love, on West Littleton Boulevard in Littleton, is open four days a week.
Meat lovers go for Rabbi I’m Confused (saucy barbecue pulled pork, pickled red onion) or Baleboosteh (slow braised brisket, roasted carrots, Guinness gravy). Or they combine both with the Meshuggah. Latkes meet a Cuban sandwich in the Jewban: smoked pork, shaved ham, Swiss, dijon and pickles.
Other than latke bowls, there’s the Tradish Knish ($6), a pastry stuffed with mashed potatoes and caramelized onion. Frank’s Blanket ($4) pairs the pastry with a hot dog, cheddar and caramelized onions.
