The Ibérico ham featured at Casa Juani, a new fine dining Spanish restaurant on Boulder’s Pearl Street, is shipped from Spain in a platinum-colored cloth cover that looks as rich as the cured delicacy tastes.
Unwrapping the leg of ham, from renowned Spanish producer Cinco Jotas, made restaurant chef and co-owner Eduardo Valle Lobo giddy on a recent weekday before service. He’d carved the previous leg himself, rolling it around on a cart and presenting slices directly to diners.
After years leading the kitchen at one of the most esteemed restaurants in the state, Frasca Food and Wine, Valle Lobo and his wife, the chef Kelly Jeun, are now putting on a show at Casa Juani. They opened the restaurant in late February at 901 Pearl St., less than a mile away, and on the same street as their previous employer.
The cuisines, however, are very different. If Frasca is a stronghold of elegant Italian dining, Casa Juani confidently arrives as its would-be Spanish counterpart.
The couple’s debut concept arrives as part of a renewed wave of Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine on the Front Range. One of the newest restaurants from Mexican-American chef Johnny Curiel of Alma Fonda Fina fame is a tapas bar, Mar Bella Wine Bar. A hotel is opening on Colfax Avenue later this month with a restaurant, FiNO, dealing its own ham boards. More tapas are still to come at Wednesday Ellie, the sister concept to American Elm, which will open in Denver’s Highland neighborhood later this year.
It’s Valle Lobo’s intimate experience with Spanish culture and cuisine that led the way. He was born in Madrid and grew up eating aromatic rice casseroles cooked slowly at home. His restaurant bears his mother’s name.
“Casa Juani brings everything full circle,” Valle Lobo said in a statement announcing the opening. “Returning to my heritage is deeply personal, but the most rewarding part is the opportunity to honor my mother.”
After meeting in New York City, the chefs moved to Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and lived and worked there for three years. The Frasca assignment brought them to Boulder in 2017 — they now live in Longmont.
Casa Juani was a flurry of activity on a recent weekend evening in March.
Valle Lobo roamed the room with his jamon Iberico fixed atop a stroller cart. As he carved small slices onto an inverted bowl ($40; other hams are listed on the menu at $18 or $28), he explained how the pigs feed on the fallen fruit of acorn trees.
The meat ages for about four years, Valle Lobo said. The leg lasted the restaurant through its first two weeks.
He and Jeun split their time and attention greeting patrons at their tables and diving into their duties in the kitchen. Servers in fitted green and brown chore jackets explained that the dishes on the menu are meant to be shared and preferably ordered all at once, to be served by them throughout the evening.
A chilled platter with seafood dishes at Casa Juani, a Spanish restaurant that opened in late February 2026 at 901 Pearl St., Boulder. (Publicity photo by Casey Wilson)
The menu is broken into starter snacks (“Piki-Piki”) such as the jamon, cheeses and olives; a raw bar (“Marisqueria”) and seafood entrees (“Pescados”); and vegetarian side dishes (“Del Huerto,” or “From the Garden,”) and meat entrees (“Carnes,” “La Mesa”).
There’s no reason to be picky about the “Piki-Piki.” The Tortilla Española ($18) is an omelet made with jidori egg, potato and olive oil that resembles a big, gooey cookie and is paired with a tangy aioli. The bread ($15) is baked at Kinship Bread, a local bakery, and is paired with two butters, including a stunning leek ash butter.
Jeun and Valle Lobo show versatility with their seafood dishes. The raw bar, visible from one end of the dining room floor, shucks and prepares thick mussels and clams ($16), sea urchin ($36), razor clam ($18) and oysters ($36). The scallop ($22) is, well, scalloped and placed in a thin layer with onion and tarragon on top of a large clam half shell. The shellfish are served chilled in a wide bowl.
The seafood entrees are larger: An octopus arm (the “Pulpo,” $26) grilled and paired with “patatas revolconas,” pureed potatoes with smoked paprika, and the Bacalao Rebozado ($21), fried bites of salted cod with a red piquillo pepper aioli. In the “Del Huerto” section, the “Arroz con Setas” ($25) is perhaps most evocative of Valle Lobo’s upbringing, a Spanish rice dish with earthy wild mushrooms, salmorreta seasoning and black perigord truffle.
Casa Juani has cocktails, such as the Juani Sour and Spanish Martini, nonalcoholic specials and an extensive wine list.
Its prominent location has drawn tourists as well as Boulder residents and employees, the chefs said. The restaurant is upscale but not elitist — Valle Lobo said he wants to provide “fun and fine dining.”
The restaurant property, a brick building with white awnings, was previously the site of My Neighbor Felix and Via Perla. It was renovated and refurbished with tiled floors, wide tables to make room for all the dishes and stylish ceiling lamps.
Valle Lobo and Jeun first conceived of the restaurant three years ago. They initially struggled to find a restaurant property. They decided upon the Pearl Street building in anticipation of the Sundance Film Festival’s move to Boulder next year, they said.
Casa Juani’s dinner service is from 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. The restaurant — one of Bon Appetit magazine’s most anticipated openings of the winter — takes reservations online. (casajuaniboulder.com)
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Dining and Cooking