Troy Guard
Guard spent eight years working closely with Yamaguchi before again stepping out of his comfort zone to take a coveted post as Chef de Cuisine for New York hotspot Tao. As one of the highest-volume restaurants in the world, the three-story behemoth prepared him for hisstint at The Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where, as Chef de Cuisine at the world-renowned Doc Cheng's restaurant, he developed his own unique Pacific Rim style.
In 2002, Sandoval and Guard opened Denver’s first Latin-Asian fusion restaurant, Zengo, in the city’s emerging Riverfront area. Following its success, Guard joined forces with restaurateurs Jim Sullivan and his daughter, Leigh Sullivan, to embark upon a new enterprise that would showcase the chef’s innovative personality while maintaining the Sullivan Group’s trendsetting mentality. The resulting restaurant, nine75, was a concept described as, “Comfort food with a rock & roll twist.” Nine75 was the first of its kind and immediately became a Denver institution. Guard and Sullivan followed this success with the opening of Ocean, a Denver eatery dedicated to uniting fresh seafood with provocative flavors and preparations.
Now married to Leigh, the couple realized that their vision of owning and operating their own restaurant was becoming a reality. The Guards left the Sullivan Group in 2007 to focus on their own endeavor that would blend Chef Guard’s more than twenty-years of culinary experience with his love of travelling and passion for people. In May of 2009, with a new daughter on the way, the Guard family opened TAG Restaurant on Larimer Square.
TAG espouses the couple’s collaborative mentality and is a culmination of life-long dreams for the two restaurateurs. TAG’s cuisine is emblematic of Guard’s unique vision of Continental Social Food, a combination of his Hawaiian roots, his Pan-Asian expertise and fresh, local Colorado ingredients, while the bar, the location and the décor draw upon Sullivan-Guard’s Denver roots. “To me, America is so diverse and our lives have become built around where we eat and who we are eating with,” explains Guard of the restaurant’s concept. “We wanted TAG to be a place where people can come to eat, to have fun, to share and learn.”
“I don’t do anything for money,” says Guard of his visions for the future. “As long as I can stay open and people enjoy it, I’ll do this because it’s what I love to do. TAG allows me to give 45 other people jobs and the ability to be creative and a platform for them to grow themselves. I get to give back to my community. But most of all, I get to learn. Life is all about learning. If you’re not learning, you’re dying.”
