Category: Santa Fe

AmericanDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

The Teahouse – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:25 AM

When I suggested to my Kim that our next al-fresco culinary adventure with our dachshund Dude (he abides) should be at the Teahouse in Santa Fe, she shot a glance at me that seemed to suggest advanced mental deterioration had caught up with me. She reminded me that every time we had tea and scones on the banks of the River Windrush in Bourton on the Water (England), I guzzled my tea and tossed bits of my scones at hungry ducks floating on the water. “It was the only way,” I argued “to enjoy high tea without actually being high.” As with most men, the notion of high tea conjures images of women in frilly outfits and flowery hats sipping tea from cups much too small for our sausage fingers and eating finger sandwiches that wouldn’t feed a famished mosquito. It’s right out of a Jane Austen novel. Our XY chromosome pairing seems to have predisposed men to hate the idea of high tea. We’re just not civilized enough to enjoy it though perhaps if the tea house had a dozen large flat screen televisions tuned to the NFL game of the week, we’d certainly enjoy the experience more. Of…

BakeryBreakfastFood Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Chocolate Maven Bakery & Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:24 PM

In the polytheistic world of the Mesoamerican cultures (which include the Aztecs and Mayans), Quetzalcoatl was revered as the creator deity and patron of priests, merchants and rulers. Known as the “feathered serpent,” Quetzalcoatl was also associated with the cocoa bean and with chocolate. Great temples were erected in his honor and chocolate was offered to him. Montezuma, the 16th century Aztec ruler revered him. In Montezuma’s great city of Tenochtitlan (which the Spaniards later renamed Mexico City), chocolate was considered a luxury drink reserved exclusively for gods and the ruler class. It is believed that Montezuma’s daily constitution included 50 goblets of a finely ground, foamy red dyed chocolate flavored with chili peppers, vanilla, wild bee honey and aromatic flowers. Today, chocolate is no longer considered exclusive to a privileged class and the celebrity-worshiping modern world no longer holds Quetzalcoatl, the “god of chocolate” in reverence. No longer are temples built in his honor or sacrifices of chocolate made in his name. Modern temples celebrating chocolate are ubiquitous in the modern world. One of New Mexico’s most renown and revered chocolate temples is the Chocolate Maven Bakery & Cafe, situated in an edifice which, from the exterior, more closely…

BurgersRating: Very GoodSanta Fe

Shake Foundation – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:30 PM

If it seems there’s a glut of restaurants brandishing a much-hyped and often self-glossed as “best” version of New Mexico’s fabled green chile cheeseburger, it won’t surprise you to read that yet another purveyor of the Land of Enchantment’s sacrosanct sandwich entered the fray in January, 2014. What might surprise you is its most worthy motto and raison d’etre: “Dedicated to the preservation of the original green chile cheeseburger.” Just what exactly does that mean? If, like me, your initial inclination is to question why at its pinnacle of popularity, the green chile cheeseburger needs to be preserved, you’re missing the point. Likewise, the motto has nothing to do with mimicking the burgers crafted by New Mexico’s two claimants to being progenitor of all green chile cheeseburgers: The Owl Cafe & Bar and Bert’s Burger Bowl. The Shake Foundation is all about preserving and honoring the inviolable traditions and impeccably high standards of the green chile cheeseburger. It’s about crafting the type of green chile cheeseburgers that trigger memories of unforgettable burgers past while creating new memories that will have you eagerly anticipating your next great green chile cheeseburger. Despite its “mission statement,” the Shake Foundation isn’t based solely on…

AmericanClosed in 2023Gone But Not ForgottenSanta Fe

Loyal Hound Pub – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:31 AM

“It’s me or the dog!” That’s the ultimatum my friend Eric was given by his then-fiancee. It was one of several augurs of an ill-fated marriage only my friend with the rose-colored-glasses failed to see. Three years later as the divorce was finalized, Eric tearfully realized he had made the wrong decision. A dog’s loyalty can never be questioned. A spouse’s eyes and heart can–and often do–wander as had been the case in this troubled marriage. Psychology professor Stanley Coren correctly postulated that “the greatest fear dogs know is the fear that you will not come back when you go out the door without them.” You can only imagine the heartbreak Pepper, Eric’s dog, felt when left in the care of strangers. Dogs don’t abandon their owners. They love us unconditionally and are unfailingly loyal even when we don’t deserve it. For those of us whose lives have been enriched by dogs, the term “man’s best friend” doesn’t come close to describing the bond we share. For many of us, dogs are four-legged children. David Readyhough and Renee Fox love their dog Lola so much that they wanted to name their restaurant after her. After agreeing that “Lola” sounded like…

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

Chez Mamou – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:00 PM

When she asked me to repeat the name of the French restaurant where we were dining one slightly breezy Sunday morning, I knew my clever bride had something in mind. Relaying that we were dining at Chez (pronounced “shay”) Mamou, she retorted “are you sure it’s not called “Shame on you.” That was her reaction to a server having deposited a stale, probably older than day-old baguette on our table. She followed up with “no self-respecting French restaurant, especially one claiming to be a bakery would serve bread baked by Napoleon’s baker.” Whether or not the fossilized (her term) bread was indicative of Chez Mamou’s daily performance, it was enough to rile my usually saintly patient wife. By this point, she had already dissed the coffee, an Allegro Coffee blend, which she found entirely too strong and “more bitter than supporters of England wanting to remain in the European Union.” (In the interest of full-disclosure, she finds coffee too strong if it can’t be “cured” by five or six packets of Splenda.”) She would later repeat her “what’s the name of this restaurant” comment while eating some of the restaurant’s highly-touted pastries and croissants, reputedly baked by a master baker…

New MexicanNew MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta Fe

El Comal Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:22 PM

From a social connectedness perspective, 1995 was the dark ages. The internet as we know and love it today was in its relative infancy. There was no Urbanspoon, no Yelp, no Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog…no trusted online resource to enlighten and entice diners. My only knowledge of Santa Fe’s restaurant scene came from fading memories and a 1994 article on Fortune magazine naming the City Different as one of the fruited plain’s ten best dining destinations. The article listed such stalwarts as the Coyote Cafe, Santacafe and the Tecolote Cafe as among the city’s best. After nearly two decades of wanderlust and travel courtesy of the United States Air Force, I had finally returned home to New Mexico and looked forward to introducing my bride of ten years to one of Fortune magazine’s anointed restaurants. It was our first excursion together to Santa Fe and my first opportunity to impress my Kim with sophisticated Santa Fe cuisine. My mom who’s infinitely more intelligent than I am had other ideas, steering us away from Fortune magazine’s popular tourist destinations and introducing us to one of Santa Fe’s quintessential off-the-beaten-path, mom-and-pop restaurants, a gem named El Comal. By 1995, El Comal…

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

Museum Hill Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:35 PM

Widely reputed to have the most spectacular views in Santa Fe and boasting of four world-renowned museums, Museum Hill may be the only location where visitors are more in awe of the site’s breathtaking backdrop than they are of the contents of the magnificent repositories that house the area’s cultural and historical heritage. Set in an idyllic haven surrounded by panoramic views of hills dotted with dessert flora, colorful weather-worn mesas and verdured mountains, Museum Hill inspires awe and wonder. Whether bathed in clear, unobstructed cerulean skies or punctuated by ethereally wispy clouds painted red, yellow and orange by fiery sunsets, incomparable vistas surround you. Perched on a hillside a scant two miles off the historic Santa Fe Trail, Museum Hill area is home to the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Museum of Indian Art and Culture, the Museum of International Folk Art and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. A new addition, Santa Fe’s Botanical Garden sits across the street. Atop Museum Hill’s “upper deck” is the expansive Milner Plaza which houses two of the quadrumvirate of museums. The concrete plaza is surrounded by a beautifully manicured array of native grasses, sages and trees interspersed with stunning Native…

BreakfastClosed in 2019Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Tecolote Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:35 PM

Everyone knows the most sagacious of all creatures in nature is the owl. The owl is to whom all other creatures go to get some of life’s most pondered questions answered–questions such as “how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” After having posed the question to a cow, a fox and a turtle, a young boy decides to ask the wise owl. “Good question, let’s find out,” the owl retorts. “A One…A two-hoo…A three (crunch sound effect). Three!” It took three licks for the erudite owl to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie roll, prompting the boy to declare, “if there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a smart owl.” Three is also the number of visits to New Mexico restaurants made in December, 2007 by Guy Fieri while filming episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives for the Food Network. Fieri was wise enough to make one of those visits to Santa Fe’s own owl, the famous and fabulous Tecolote Cafe. Tecolote is the Nahuatl (Aztec) word for “owl,” but founding proprietors Bill and Alice Jamison actually named their restaurant for an all-but-deserted Northern New Mexican village alongside…

New MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Posa’s El Merendero – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:43 PM

When we phoned our friend Carlos to ask where the best tamales in Santa Fe were to be found, he waxed enthusiastic about a tamale factory and restaurant on Rodeo Road just west of Saint Francis. He told us the restaurant was once owned by a professional wrestler and is Santa Fe’s equivalent of Albuquerque’s legendary El Modelo. After we hung up with Carlos, neither my Kim nor I could remember the restaurant’s name or exact address. We’d both assumed the other one would remember. I seemed to recall the restaurant’s name being “El Mero Mero,” a name which made a lot of sense to me because it can translate from Spanish to “the main one,” “the top dog,” “the head honcho” or other terms of that ilk. Needless to say, we couldn’t find El Mero Mero. Because El Mero Mero didn’t work out, my second brilliant hypothesis was “El Maromero,” or “the somersaulter.” That name didn’t even make sense to me (much less to my brilliant better half), but considering the uniquely wacky names (not to mention costumes) used by Mexican luchadores, maybe El Maromero wasn’t that outlandish. After not being able to El Maromero, we turned into a…

BurgersRating: N/R (Not Rated)SandwichSanta Fe

Bang Bite Filling Station – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:23 PM

“When people pile seven things onto one burger, it drives me nuts!” ~Bobby Flay Seven ingredients? That’s not a burger! It’s a hodgepodge, a medley, a potpourri! It’s everything including the kitchen sink. Perhaps other regions in America need the Iron Chef’s sage advice, but New Mexicans certainly don’t. For us, a burger with minimal ingredients is just common sense. That’s because we’ve got green chile and when you’ve got green chile, who needs anything else? In the Land of Enchantment, our green chile cheeseburger is sacrosanct, a celebrated cultural tradition and an iconic food. The very best green chile cheeseburgers are made with no more than three to five ingredients (including the green chile and cheese) and those ingredients are intended to complement the green chile, not mask it. In the Land of Enchantment, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that almost every restaurant, drive-in, diner, dive, joint, cafe, roadside stand, eatery, greasy spoon, lunch counter and bowling alley slinging burgers is going to brag about its green chile cheeseburger being the best to be found anywhere. That is everyone but Santa Fe’s Bang Bite Filling Station which gregarious owner-chef Enrique Guerrero contends doesn’t even offer a green chile cheeseburger.…

New MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta FeSouthwestern

Coyote’s Rooftop Cantina – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:02 PM

National Geographic Traveler once described Santa Fe as “a hypercultural hybrid–equal parts Wild West and New Age, Native American and Hispanic, old money and old hippie”…a city “used to mixing things up and still creating an oddly seamless whole.” It truly is the City Different, a city with an identity, substance and style all its own. Is it any wonder it has earned acclaim as one of the most popular travel destinations in the world? Yet, to many people, Santa Fe is as much an escape as it is a destination. It is an adobe colored Mecca that preternaturally calls seekers to a spiritual and creative fulfillment they just don’t find elsewhere. Santa Fe draws them with an amalgam of spiritual tranquility, piñon-perfumed air and its accepting, non-judgmental culture. It holds them captive with its beauty and its cuisine. One of the defining elements of contemporary “Santa Fe style” has been the howling coyote, an art phenomenon originated by woodcarver Alonzo Jimenez a couple of decades ago. While the coyote is prevalent in contemporary Native American mythology and generally represents a cunning, treacherous scourge, to New Mexico artisans he has been a blessing, displayed on every conceivable medium. The howling…