Category: New Mexico

ItalianNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Osteria d’Assisi – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:33 PM

Historians have characterized the discovery, exploration, and colonization of the Americas in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as having had three express purposes: glory, gold and God. This holds true in New Mexico where Spanish Explorers may have come for glory and gold, but finding neither, stayed for God.  Believing the large population of native peoples needed to hear the Gospel, the Spaniards established New Mexico first as a colony then as a mission. The effort to Christianize the native peoples was led by Franciscans, known then as the Sons of St. Francis of Assisi.  The sandal-shod Franciscans carried…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2011Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Las Mañanitas – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:45 AM

Estas son las mañanitas, que cantaba el Rey David, Hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti, Despierta, mi bien, despierta, mira que ya amaneció, Ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió. This is the morning song that King David sang Because today is your saint’s day we’re singing it for you Wake up, my dear, wake up, look it is already dawn The birds are already singing and the moon has set Las Mañanitas, the traditional Mexican birthday song often sung in Catholic churches and birthday parties is one of my very favorite…

AmericanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Blue Heron Restaurant at Sunrise Springs – La Cienega, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:39 AM

Fewer than ten miles separate the historic Spanish village of La Ciénega from Santa Fe, and though both have largely retained vestiges of their storied and proud histories, the differences that set them apart are as vast as El Camino Real, the Royal Road that has connected them for centuries. While Santa Fe has entered the 21st century as a burgeoning cosmopolitan city, La >Ciénega remains a rural enclave, parts of which have remained unchanged for generations–that despite becoming somewhat of a bedroom community for Santa Feans. Once a rural Indian pueblo outpost, La Ciénega  was abandoned in the seventeenth…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenGreek

Athens Eclectic Greek – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:52 AM

There’s an expression in Greece that all roads lead to Athens. If restaurateur Gus Petropoulos has his way, all Albuquerque streets will take diners to Athens Eclectic Greek Cuisine, the restaurant he launched in August, 2007. Petropoulos is a veteran of culinary competition, having owned six restaurants in Florida before setting up shop in the Duke City. His new venture is located in the Far North Shopping Center where, just scant years ago, this was about as far north as you could go in Albuquerque. The eclectic in the restaurant’s name means you’ll find so much more than gyros, Kalamata…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastClosed in 2010Gone But Not Forgotten

Chef Jim White’s Cafe & Catering – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:43 AM

Long before the Food Network made chefs legitimate on-air celebrity icons, Albuquerque had its own larger-than-life, media-savvy celebrity chef who, it seemed, spent almost as much time on the airwaves as behind the stove. Chef Jim White was a peripatetic presence on television where he hosted short cooking segments on two Duke City television news programs in addition to having a three-minute format airing in a San Diego station. He also wrote a highly-regarded food column for the Albuquerque Journal. So well known was (and is) Chef Jim White that in Albuquerque his name is always prefaced with his title,…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Downtown Gourmet – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:01 AM

“People who know nothing about cheeses reel away from Camembert, Roquefort, and Stilton because the plebeian proboscis is not equipped to differentiate between the sordid and the sublime.” – Harvey Day I don’t know whether or not Mr. Day intended his quote as a condescending affront toward those lacking appreciation for some of the world’s most fetid fromage, but the truth is, not everyone really “gets it” when it comes to stinky cheeses. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. That’s because there really is a cheese for everyone. It’s one of the world’s most versatile and beloved foods and it…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBakeryClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Have Your Cake Bakery & Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:20 AM

Leave it to the wonderfully irascible and irreverent comedian George Carlin to put things in perspective in his retort to a popular English idiom. “When people say, ‘Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.’ What good is a cake you can’t eat? What should I eat, someone else’s cake instead?“. The idiom “to have one’s cake and eat it, too or simply have one’s cake and eat it” actually means wanting more than one can handle or deserves, or to trying to have two incompatible things. Still, Carlin makes a sage point. In Albuquerque’s Far…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRating: Good

El Charritos – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:32 PM

New Mexico born Hispanics of my generation grew up watching not only American “shoot ’em up” Westerns featuring rugged cowboys, rowdy rustlers, round-ups and home on the range, but the Mexican equivalent–movies featuring the exploits of charros, the traditional cowboys of central and northern Mexico. Despite my admiration for the charros of the cinema, it took more than 20 years before my first visit to a restaurant named for the dashing Mexican horsemen who were equally adept with a lasso as they were with a gun. I had driven past the Central Avenue location of El Charritos for years, first…

AlbuquerqueNew Mexican

El Charritos – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:19 PM

Many New Mexico born Hispanics of my generation grew up watching not only American “shoot ’em up” Westerns featuring rugged cowboys, rowdy rustlers, round-ups and home on the range, but the Mexican equivalent–movies featuring the exploits of charros, the traditional cowboys of central and northern Mexico. Despite my admiration for the charros of the cinema, it took more than 20 years before my first visit to a restaurant named for the dashing Mexican horsemen who were equally adept with a lasso as they were with a gun. I had driven past the Central Avenue location of El Charritos for years,…

FrenchNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

315 Restaurant & Wine Bar – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:15 PM

>Compared to the extraordinarily perceptive 19th-century detective Sherlock Holmes, his best friend and confidante Dr. John H. Watson was an ordinary man, a perfect “foil” for the brilliant Holmes. Though lacking his friend’s deductive abilities and almost prescient ability to solve problems, Dr. Watson was, however, prone to occasional observations of brilliance and statements of profound eloquence. For example, in the 2004 novel Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara, Dr. Watson describes a three-hour French meal: “Each dish was more fantastical than the last. One can only conclude that it is the special purpose of French cookery to dissolve the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenMariscosMexican

Villa del Mar – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:46 AM

Who hasn’t dreamt of a luxurious Mexican Villa overlooking pristine sandy beaches and translucent blue waters–a distinguished gate, thriving gardens and a capacious floor plan with earth-toned terracotta and ochre floors and walls festooned in vibrant colors? Think of it–your own personal chef preparing the briny delicacies of the sea for your every meal, the soulful voice of a Mexican singer plumbing the depths of your emotions, a fresh Pacific breeze negating the balmy climate.  It would be an idyllic life. The Villa del Mar restaurant on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue won’t make all these dreams a reality, but it will…