[ Anasazi Restaurant
| Bistro 315 | Café Pasqual's
| Coyote Café | Fuego ]
[ Geronimo | La
Casa Sena | Maria's New Mexican Kitchen | Pranzo Italian Grill ]
[ Santacafe | The Compound | The Shed ]
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for meetings in Santa Fe
Anasazi Restaurant
Located within the Inn of the Anasazi, the Anasazi Restaurant
is among the most respected restaurants in Santa Fe, serving a creative
Southwestern, Native American cuisine. Grilled buffalo burgers and
tortilla soup are among the more casual lunch fare, but you can
go upscale for dinner with innovative dishes such as wild boar chops
with bourbon glaze and dry-rubbed beef tenderloin with white-cheddar
mashed potatoes. Breakfast is top notch too, with homemade scones
and French toast. Rough wood tables, adobe banquettes and local
weavings add a rugged look to this shiny Four-Diamond-rated restaurant
and also carry the desert theme throughout. Look closely and you
may spot a visiting celebrity.
The Anasazi Restaurant
113 Washington Ave.
(505) 988-3236
www.innoftheanasazi.com
Bistro 315
Hard to believe you'd find a traditional French bistro residing
in this wild west town, but that's exactly what you have in (Bistro)
315. 315 sports a seasonal menu that includes Steak
frites au poivre, mustard crusted rack of lamb, organic vegetables
and a properly decadent creme brulee. The nightly specials are carefully
chalked on a blackboard menu each evening, just like you'd find
in a respected Parisian neighborhood restaurant. Moderately priced
($20 to $30 range), this is a good option when you need a night
off from the goat cheese, poblano chili fare that permeates this
New Mexican town. The nearby 315 Wine Bar features more than 250
wines from around the world, and patio dining is available during
warm weather. Make reservations in advance. This is one of the tiniest
places in a town full of tiny restaurants.
315
315 Old Santa Fe Trail
(505) 986-9190
www.315santafe.com
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Café Pasqual's
If lines out the door are any indication, then Café
Pasqual's is the city's premiere dining experience. Small
and homey with hand-painted tile walls and knots of ristras for
decoration, the atmosphere is festive and the northern New Mexican
cuisine with Asian overtones speaks for itself. The prices, comparatively
speaking, are very affordable. The grilled salmon burrito with herbed
goatcheese and cucumber sauce, along with the shrimp in lemongrass,
corn cakes with cilantro and rack of lamb bring a brisk dinner business,
but breakfast is the true sleeper hit. Hour-long lines wrap around
the block for Yucatan huevos Motulenos, chorizo burritos and whole
wheat pancakes. Prices range from $6 to $13. If things are really
busy (and they almost always are) you may be seated at the huge
wooden communal table. Be prepared for some lively local conversation.
Café Pasqual's
121 Don Gaspar Ave.
(505) 983-9340
www.pasquals.com
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Coyote Café
Chef/owner Mark Miller, recognized and celebrated founder of Modern
Southwestern cuisine, continues to impress with this landmark establishment
in Santa Fe. With an urban Southwestern atmosphere accentuated by
calf skin covered chairs and exhibition-style kitchen, he dazzles
a tourist-heavy crowd with huge 22-ounce rib-eye steaks, wild boar
sausage, duck quesadillas, and piles of red chile onion rings. If
you go for dinner, be prepared to eat big. Those with smaller appetites
should go for lunch or ask to sit at the chef's counter, a first-come,
first-serve area where you can order a la carte. Two adjunct establishments
offer additional variety--Rooftop Cantina, for light Latino/Cuban
fare served wtih cocktails on the terrace, and Cottonwoods,
a new ground floor addition for reasonably priced diner-style food.
Then there's the general store below the restaurant, which sells
hot sauces and other Southwestern foodstuffs.
Coyote Café
132 Water St.
(505) 983-1615
www.coyotecafe.com
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Fuego Restaurant
Fuego, in the La Posada
hotel, has continued to make a name for itself among city gourmets.
The AAA-rated, Four-Diamond award recipient presents a dining room
that's ripe for romance, with darkly elegant decor that includes
low lights and big Moroccan-style pillows along Mexican benches.
But it's the food that really sets the tone. An American contemporary
menu comes with Southwestern touches: buffalo tenderloin on a white
bean ragout, black tiger shrimp with honey and garlic or a spicy
tortilla soup served for lunch and dinner. Sip wine in front of
the fire or dine under the stars. Fuego is an expensive proposition,
but most consider it worthwhile for executive chef Rahm Fama's inspired
creations.
Fuego Restaurant
330 East Palace Ave.
(505) 954-9670
http://laposada.rockresorts.com/info/din.fuego.asp
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Geronimo
Book reservations well in advance for the
critically acclaimed, Geronimo, a beautiful adobe
restaurant along Canyon Road with an appropriately Southwestern
title and long history. Appetizers like Maryland blue crab strudel,
and entrees like mesquite grilled elk, roasted duck rellenos oozing
with goat cheese, and the exotic ostrich make up this eclectic menu.
While the food is terrific, the ambience competes for star billing:
a 250-year-old building with traditional thick mud walls, cushioned
banquettes, an airy porch, and a maze of rooms that seems to go
on forever. It seats many and that's a good thing since this is
one of the most consistently popular restaurants in town.
Geronimo
724 Canyon Rd.
(505) 982-1500
www.geronimorestaurant.com
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La Casa Sena
A favorite for lunch, La Casa Sena
serves up Southwestern and Mexican dishes in a 19th century Territorial-style
adobe house just off the Plaza. Enchiladas, pastas and chicken sandwiches
are typical mid-day fare served on the bustling patio. For dinner,
things get creative with entrees like tequila and grapefruit cured
salmon nachos and chipotle quail salad served in the more formal
dining room. Patio dining is also available during the summer months.
La Casa Sena also boasts an award-winning wine list that features
more than 1,000 wines. Next door at the Cantina the wait
staff serves more modest fare and then sings tunes from Broadway
musicals cabaret style. Together, this well-established combo offers
a quintessential Santa Fe experience.
La Casa Sena
125 East Palace Ave.
(505) 988-9232
www.lacasasena.com
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Maria's New Mexican
Kitchen
There are those who would argue that Maria's
New Mexican Kitchen serves the best Mexican fare in Santa
Fe. For certain, the place is a tradition here. Started in 1952
when Maria and Gilbert Lopez started a small takeout kitchen in
the area where you now find the bar and kitchen, Maria's has grown
a great deal in both size and menu options, not to mention Tequila,
at the forefront of some 100 different Margaritas. More than thirty
Mexican specialties are served including traditional fajitas, rellenos,
blue corn enchiladas, and steak served with green chile. Though
Maria is long gone, the food is still among the best inexpensive
fare in the city.
Maria's New Mexican Kitchen
555 West Cordova Rd.
(505) 983-7929
www.marias-santafe.com
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Pranzo Italian Grill
Pranzo offers diners a contemporary atmosphere
and food prepared on an open grill. The environment is not fancy
and upscale, nor are its traditional menu items. Homemade soups,
salads, creative thin-crust pizzas, and fresh pastas are among the
less expensive dishes, while the "Specialita" section offers more
creativity as with the Fattoria a Tavola lamb dish, or the Vitello
Marsala veal with creamy mushroom sauce and roasted red potatoes.
For traditional pasta, Spaghettini Con Aglio Gamberoni features
a bevy of ingredients including shrimp and provolone. Once a Santa
Fe hangout for Hollywood stars, today's Pranzo is less about limelight
and more about consistency and simplicity, combining tasty fare
with a reasonable price. The upstairs rooftop terrace makes for
a terrific post-dinner visit for a glass of red and glimpse of the
moon.
Pranzo Italian Grill
540 Montezuma
(505) 984-2645
www.pranzo-italiangrill.com
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Santacafe
Located in the 200-year-old Padre Gallegos House, Santacafe
is an elegant Santa Fe eatery serving New American and Southwestern
cuisine. In warm weather you can sit on a boulder-strewn courtyard
and dive into appetizers like roasted tomato soup, spring rolls
stuffed with shiitake mushrooms and marinated cactus pads, all creative
and delicious. For dinner try the Chilean sea bass served over corn
and roasted sweet peppers or medallions of pork. Desserts, which
range from chocolate upside down cake to raspberry pudding, are
worth the calories here. There's also a prodigious wine list.
Santacafe
231 Washington Ave.
(505) 984-1788
www.santacafe.com
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The Compound
Chef/owner Mark Kiffin, formerly of Coyote Café and lately
of "Best Chef of the Southwest" acclaim, has revitalized The
Compound, a renowned restaurant at the cultural center of Santa
Fe. Loosening the culinary reins, Kiffin produces a contemporary
twist to artful American fare with some of the boldest and most
flavorful food in the area. For starters, try the tuna tartare topped
with Osetra caviar, or trevisio and endive salad with cabrales cheese.
For an entree, the signature grilled beef tenderloin, generously
served with Italian potatoes and foie gras hollandaise may deter
any thoughts of dessert and coffee consumption. For those who dare,
however, a great finish is either the bittersweet chocolate torte
or the delightfully sweet sugarcoated buttermilk biscuit. During
warmer months, enclosed patio dining is available.
The Compound
653 Canyon Rd.
(505) 982-4353
www.compoundrestaurant.com
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The Shed
It's almost unthinkable to leave the American Southwest without
sampling some spicy "New" Mexican food. You'll find it
in quantity at The Shed,
within its venerable 17th century adobe building, which houses a
delectable blend of traditional Hispanic, Pueblo and Mexican influenced
cooking. Grab a generous helping of the green chile stew with spicy
potato and pork, dig into the blue corn enchiladas with red chile,
beans and posole, or the Pollo Adobo, about as good as it gets.
All dishes are served with French garlic bread, an unusual but lifelong
tradition at The Shed. A luncheon institution for more than 50 years,
it gets crowded quickly, but fortunately you have a pleasant hacienda
courtyard to ramble around in while you wait.
The Shed
113 1/2 East Palace Ave.
(505) 982-9030
www.sfshed.com
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