If Colorado has culinary royalty, Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, the guys behind Frasca Food and Wine, are surely wearing crowns. Pick a big award and they’ve either won it or are in the running for it. But previous honors don’t make the act of opening another restaurant any easier, and Tavernetta, which they launched last fall at Union Station, was certainly no cinch.

Eight days after it opened, a fire in the kitchen shuttered the restaurant for nearly two months. But even before that, Tavernetta presented its own challenges, as it’s neither fine dining like Frasca nor casual like Pizzeria Locale, the partners’ Neapolitan pizzeria in Boulder. Tavernetta sits in the middle, which — as any middle child will tell you — is the hardest place to be.