Category: Santa Fe

Closed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanRating: ExceptionalSanta Fe

EPAZOTE ON THE HILLSIDE – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:37 PM

Epazote. That’s a word that can make an intrepid chef’s toque blanche resemble the white flag of surrender. If you’re a culinary savant and haven’t heard of epazote, it’s probably because the chefs at restaurants you frequent might just be afraid to use it. Would you want to use an ingredient also known as “skunkweed” and “wormseed”…a word derived from a Nahuatl term for an animal with a rank odor…an ingredient perhaps best known for reducing the after-effects of eating beans? When Chef Fernando Olea chose to name his fabulous new world restaurant Epazote, it signaled a bold departure from…

Fine DiningNew MexicoSanta Fe

Anasazi Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:00 PM

As you gaze in awe and wonder at the luxurious trappings surrounding you everywhere you turn at the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, you can’t help but contemplate the irony. Inn of the Anasazi? Throughout their existence the Anasazi never knew luxury or leisure, focusing solely and at all times on survival. Shelter, food and water were of paramount concern in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, a desolate environment which was often brutal and unforgiving. Amidst the ravages of climatic extremes, the Anasazi scratched out an existence and an lasting legacy. While the subsistence living of the Anasazi…

Food Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: GoodSanta FeThe Best Thing I Ever Ate

Five & Dime General Store – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:35 PM

The late Fray Angelico Chavez, New Mexico’s preeminent historian once wrote about Santa Fe’s growth, “The only threat to her own distinctive glory, and something to guard against these days, is the kind of hurried “progress” which has, not history or humanity, but only money as its sole aim and purpose.” Perhaps nowhere in Santa Fe has that hurried progress been more in evidence than in the world-famous Santa Fe Plaza which has seen significant changes over the years. One of the bastions against progress had been the Woolworth’s department store, in place for several generations, but which finally gave…

New MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa FeSouthwestern

Del Charro Saloon – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:12 PM

Can it truly be that the more things change, the more they stay the same? In 1776, Fermin de Mendinueta, governor and captain-general of the Spanish province of New Mexico, declared that “Santa Fe settlers are “churlish types” who are “accustomed to live apart from each other, as neither fathers nor sons associate with each other.” In 2013, Travel & Leisure published a list of America’s “snobbiest cities” and Santa Fe made the list at number five. The list was based on surveys of the magazine’s readers. Mayor at the time David Cross attributed the perception of Santa Fe snobbery…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueNew MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta Fe

Whole Hog Cafe – Santa Fe & Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:03 PM

While the etymology of the expression “whole hog” appears to be American, its progenitor is actually an English slang word. Americans in the new world employed the slang use of hog as a word for dime, intending the term to mean “spend the entire coin at once.” The word hog had been previously used in the Mother Country as slang for a shilling and came from the depiction of a hog on one side of the English coin. To barbecue fanatics, however, the term “whole hog” can only mean one thing–the whole hog category in Memphis in May, the annual…

JapaneseMichelin Recognized RestaurantsMichelin Recommended RestaurantRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Izanami – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:01 PM

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words.” ~Marcel Marceau When the Spaniards first gazed upon the setting sun as it hit the towering snow-capped mountains and appeared to bathe the slopes in a burst of red, they were so moved that the pious Conquistadors exclaimed “Sangre de Cristo,” blood of Christ. Whether bathed in the spectacular red alpenglow of sunset or in the “like yellow hair of a tigress brindled with pines” gold of autumn aspens as described by D.H. Lawrence, the Sangre de Cristos still move people deeply, stirring their very souls. The…

Food Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta FeThe Secret Life Of

Horseman’s Haven – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:12 PM

I know several native New Mexicans who have accepted the dumbing down of political office in America as a consequence of living in these times and who have shrugged apathetically at the attenuation of educational standards. These same individuals, however, become as agitated and vociferous as scalded cats when served chile that has been “Anglicized”–that is, chile which doesn’t bring sweat to their brows, tears to their eyes and blisters to their tongues. Pepper spray has nothing on chile for these capsaicin addicted masochistic diehards. I spoke with one of these chileheads several days after the January, 2006 airing of…

BurgersNew MexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

El Milagro New Mexican Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:31 PM

Believing “there was a void in our menu vis-a-vis the adult who wanted a higher ratio of meat to bun,” a former Vice President of product development for McDonald’s invented The Quarter Pounder in 1971. As a marketing ploy, the name Quarter Pounder quickly became a resounding success. Clever advertising campaigns convinced American consumers they were purchasing a large, beefy burger they would be challenged to finish. Had the burger been given the far less formidable christening of “Four Ouncer” we wouldn’t be talking about this McDonald’s staple forty-some years later. When it comes to burgers across the fruited plain,…

ItalianRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Pranzo Italian Grill – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:41 PM

Can you imagine New Mexico Magazine‘s scintillating culinary liaison Cheryl Alters Jamison declaring to the world that Texas chili, that cumin-laden “con carne” bowl of red (insert your favorite epithet here), is superior to New Mexico’s red and green and that our chefs are shamelessly usurping Texas culinary traditions? Not even as an April Fool’s Day joke would she do that…and if she did, her husband Bill would probably have her committed. In May, 2013, an Italian culture minister committed a near treasonous act in declaring that “In Italy we haven’t eaten well for a long time, unfortunately. We have…

New MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta FeSouthwestern

La Cantina at Casa Sena – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:12 PM

In the dark ages of 1979 when the world wasn’t nearly as connected as it is today, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ruled the airwaves throughout the United Kingdom just as it had since its founding in 1922. Young listeners complained that the monopoly of control had forged a monotony in programming. For Yanks like me, however, the so-called “monotony” provided the most interesting diversion. In perhaps trying to appeal to listeners of all demographics with a one-size-fits-all approach, the BBC’s programming didn’t seem to make any sense…at least by American standards. My own musical tastes tend to be very…

BreakfastNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: ExcellentSanta FeSouthwestern

La Plazuela at La Fonda – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:14 PM

History and Hollywood have glamorized the Colt 45 revolver as the “gun that tamed the West.” Known as the “Peacemaker,” the .45 caliber pistol was used by all the famous lawmen and cowboy heroes of the old West. Wyatt Earp used the Colt 45. So did Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. It was often the deciding factor in the unrelenting battle of good and evil, the means by which law and order were established in a frontier in which chaos reigned. Many aficionados of the Wild West would never list a genteel English emigrant named Fred Harvey in…