The top of the menu at Mateo reads: “It is around the table that friends understand best the warmth of being together.” It doesn’t take long to tell this is more than a tagline.
Owner Matthew Jansen has a long friendship with the Laudisio family, whose eponymous Italian eatery in North Boulder was loved and lauded for its lively atmosphere and wood-fired pizzas.
“Antonio [Laudisio] is sort of my surrogate father,” says Jansen, who moved to Boulder from Jamaica as a youngster and quickly befriended Antonio’s son, Tavio.
To this day, you might still find Antonio sitting down at Mateo to enjoy a glass or two alongside a band of boisterous regulars who appear to know the menu as well as they do each other.
Becoming the scene
Mateo opened in 2001 at its East Pearl location.
“I think people in Boulder love new things,” Jansen says. “At the time, there was nothing happening on the East End,” which has now become the scene.
Jansen helmed the kitchen for the majority of the last two decades.
“For the first year and a half I
handled front of house and wine
buying,” he says. “I was pretty much the maître d’.”
Using local ingredients to make stunning renditions of Provencal cuisine has always been a big part of what Mateo dishes up. Jansen’s early adoption of farm-to-table ethics comes from time in San Francisco working as wine director for the Michael Mina Group, the powerhouse behind Mina’s two Michelin-starred namesake restaurants in San Fran (now closed) and Las Vegas.
“We’re proud to be a part of the surge of sourcing outrageously great local ingredients,” Jansen says.
His own love of food and wine began early in life. He started working at Laudisio when he was 18, kickstarting a passion for Italian wines.
“Right around 1992 was when I got to go over to Italy to do my first harvest with some of the great producers of Piedmont,” he says. He’s since gone on to earn the advanced sommelier title, as well as acquiring his Italian Somme Guild certificate. Jansen attended the French Culinary Academy in Lyon and apprenticed at some of the region’s finest restaurants. His resume includes a stint at Valentino, the legendary Santa Monica joint known for nearly 50 years as one of the country’s great halls of Italian cuisine and wine.
While Jansen isn’t on the line the way he used to be, the food at Mateo is in good hands with Corey Smith, Jansen’s business partner and director of culinary operations, and chef de cuisine Artemio Portillo, who’s been with the restaurant since day one. The three will still build rotating seasonal menus with staples like paté, poulet, steak frites and duck confit.
Prime time
Mateo seems to be in its prime after a few iterations over the years.
“We went through the cigar craze, the mixologist craze, but wine’s always been the common theme here,” Jansen says.
Like everyone else, Mateo had to make cuts to survive the pandemic, dropping lunch and brunch. Lunch returned when the restaurant was allowed to operate at full capacity, and brunch finally rejoined the roster this May, with a largely new menu built heavily by Smith, only on Sundays.
“You see a lot more bottles of wine and cocktails going out with lunch than you used to,” Jansen says. “There’s not as much of a constraint for racing back to the office.”
Brunch guests can expect plenty of elegant staples. Beignets are made in-house, served with a marvelous dollop of lemon curd. There’s housemade granola with fresh fruit, and sturdier plates like the sunshine burger with caramelized onions, bacon jam, avocado, fried egg and frites, or steak and eggs with roasted potatoes and some of what is surely the region’s best bernaise.
“We’re doing a lot of composed dishes as opposed to build-your-own breakfasts,” Jansen says. “It’s nice and perfectly simple.”
There are plans to expand brunch to Saturdays come August.
