Across the metro area, several dumpling shops have opened recently, including a cluster within a small Denver/Aurora radius providing their own variations. Boiled, steamed, or fried, they are filled, twisted and pinched closed. Deft hands churn out artful bundles that encourage sharing, one bite at a time.

Mason’s Dumplings, at E. Montview Blvd. and Dayton St., opened in 2019, the inaugural of three Colorado locations of the California-based company. Mason’s, who didn’t respond to calls and messages, serves boiled, steamed, and fried dumplings including crab and pork; chicken and cabbage; and fish and Napa cabbage combinations. They weathered the pandemic thanks to the easily-transportable items served out of the front of their shop.

YumCha Dumpling & Noodle Bar opened in October, the newest incarnation of the Eastbridge Town Center space off Havana St. and MLK Jr. Blvd. It’s run by Lon Symensma, executive chef and founder of ChoLon Restaurant Concepts, which has two YumCha locations; Gusto, an Italian restaurant; and three ChoLon Modern Asian concepts, including the most recent at Concourse C of the Denver International Airport.

“YumCha” means to drink tea but Symensma says it expands to include enjoying dim sum with others. The space is both a restaurant featuring dumplings, shumai, noodles, soup, and spring rolls, and the commissary kitchen making dumplings for their other restaurants.

Symensma convinced the dim sum chef with whom he worked at Buddakan in New York to move to Denver to head his dumpling program, creating fillings that are inventive like French Onion and Gruyere Cheese and traditional ones like General Tso’s. Symensma feels making dumplings is a dying art and wants to make sure it is honored and retained.

“Dumpling making takes months and months and even years to perfect,” he says. “There’s so much skill and technique that goes into it…It’s repetitive and consistency is the most important thing.”

Symensma feels diners embrace eating dumplings as a new way of dining out instead of the usual appetizer, entrée, and dessert.

“Dim sum is essentially brunch, where we sit around, converse, and talk about life and the enjoyment of eating things communally,” he says. “That’s what dim sum and dumplings are all about and I love that.”

YumCha has dumplings on its regular and happy hour menus plus bottomless soup dumplings on Monday nights.

The newest dumpling shop in the area, two blocks from Mason’s, is Nana’s Dim Sum & Dumplings at Clinton St. and E. Montview Blvd. It opens in early January 2025, marking their fourth location. The Colorado-based company is named in honor of owner Jack Lu’s grandmother, who shared her recipes with Lu’s wife, Kelly Ou. The menus consist of those family recipes plus new ones introduced by Ou.

“Serving my grandmother’s recipes is incredibly meaningful to me,” says Lu. “It’s about sharing a piece of my family history with diners.”

Nana’s serves six types of dumplings, either pan fried or steamed, including vegetable, chive and pork, and chicken and corn. Aren Chen, general manager of the new location, says the best way to try them is with dumpling roulette: one of each flavor. They also have two kinds of “soup buns:” soup dumplings that Chen advises diners to poke a hole in the top of, letting the soup pour out into the spoon to cool, sipping the broth before eating the dumpling.

At each Nana’s location, the public can watch dumplings being made in a glass showcase area. Dumpling-making classes will be offered in the future.

Chen isn’t worried about their proximity to other dumpling shops.

“We have different varieties than the others so we bring more options to the area,” he says.

Owner Jack Lu agrees. “It creates a vibrant food scene that attracts more diners to the area, giving us all a chance to showcase our unique offerings,” says Lu. “I believe that healthy competition can push us all to improve and innovate, benefiting the diners and the community as a whole.”

Front Porch photos by Christie Gosch