Category: Brunch

AlbuquerqueBrunchDog FriendlyFine DiningItalian

Scalo Northern Italian Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

CAVEAT EMPTOR:  The following review is based on visits prior to 2019 when Scalo shuttered its doors.  Scalo has since reopened. When we moved back to New Mexico on May 15, 1995, our first priority wasn’t where to live, but where to eat. Having been away for the better part of 18 years, there were so many old favorites with which to reacquaint ourselves and so many exciting new prospects we just had to try. By year’s end, we had visited 75 different restaurants (no chains). One of our favorite sources on where to eat was Albuquerque Monthly, a very well written publication which celebrated the Duke City’s culinary scene with an Annual Restaurant Guide and a “Best of Albuquerque”…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBar & GrillBrunchClosed in 2021Dog FriendlyGone But Not Forgotten

Nob Hill Bar & Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

There’s talk on the street, it’s there to remind you, it doesn’t really matter which side you’re on You’re walking away and they’re talking behind you They will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along – New Kid In Town: The Eagles As an independent observer of the New Mexico culinary experience, it’s always intrigued me just how fleeting and short-lived the popularity of new restaurants can be. Perhaps indicative of our human need for constant new sources of stimulation and gratification, diners (and restaurant critics) flock to new restaurants like moths to a flame. In our minds, new seems to translate to fresh and exciting. We seem drawn to the spit, polish and promise of new restaurants in…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2017Diners Drive-Ins and DivesDog FriendlyFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenRated 25

Eli’s Place (formerly Sophia’s Place) – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

NOTE: In March, 2018, Sophia’s Place reopened.  Please click here for the updated review. Picture yourself as a first-year marketing student assigned by your professor to perform a marketing analysis of Eli’s Place and its enigmatic chef-owner Dennis Apodaca. Essentially you’ve got to figure out the rhyme and reason behind the restaurant’s success. “Easy assignment,” you think to yourself, “Eli’s Place is successful because it serves some of the best, most delicious food in Albuquerque.” Your research quickly reveals, however, that Eli’s Place actually violates many of the time-honored, trusted and fundamental marketing tenets of growing and successful businesses. From a marketing perspective, it just shouldn’t work as well as it does. Any Marketing 101 student can tell you, for…

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Chez Mamou – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

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,…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrunchClosed in 2020Diners Drive-Ins and DivesDog FriendlyFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not Forgotten

Standard Diner – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

From the Standard Diner Facebook Page: It is with great sadness that Standard Diner will be closing its doors for good after dinner service on Monday, September 7th.  On Friday the 11th, our doors will reopen as The Range Cafe. While New Mexico is most assuredly the Land of Enchantment, most locals also accept that it’s also the “land of mañana” where things that can be put off until tomorrow usually are, where the pace of life is more relaxed and slower. George Adelo, Jr., an enterprising Pecos resident even coined (and copyrighted) a phrase to describe the New Mexican way: “Carpe Mañana”–Seize Tomorrow. The spirit of Carpe Mañana was certainly prevalent in the long-awaited, much-anticipated opening of the Standard…

BreakfastBrunchBuffetClosed in 2016Fine DiningGone But Not Forgotten

Jhett’s Restaurant – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In its halcyon days, the Chamisa Hills golf course and country club in Rio Rancho was considered one of the city’s crown jewels. Its undulating 18-hole championship course with strategically placed deciduous trees and challenging water hazards once hosted the Charley Pride Golf Fiesta, one of the most prestigious tournaments in the state. Built in 1970, the 212-acre development was flanked by upscale gated communities and boasted of magnificent panoramic views showcasing the reddish hues of the Sandias at sunset and the twinkling city lights of Albuquerque at night. Alas, over time escalating water rates made operating the course economically onerous. Soon denuded fairways and eroded bunkers replaced the once verdant grounds. In 2013, the Chamisa Hills golf course and…

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Cinnamon Sugar and Spice Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Back in the dark ages when I grew up–long before America became the kinder, gentler Utopia it is today–it would have been inconceivable that boys and girls would receive trophies just for “participating.” Back then, we were expected to be competitive about everything. The battle of the sexes was waged at home every night with my brothers and I pitting our brawn and bulk against the brains and gumption of our sisters, two of whom would go on to graduate as valedictorians and all of them much smarter than the recalcitrant Garduño boys. It rankled us to no end when our sisters reminded us constantly that “boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails’” while they were…

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Cafe Fina – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Living in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, my nieces expect to stay home on those blustery winter days in which (gasp, the horror) two or more inches of snow accumulate on the highways and byways. Because, they reason, sane people don’t have to risk such ”treacherous conditions,” they don’t buy the dramatic “exaggerations” my brother relates about his experiences growing up in Peñasco. After all, how could they be expected to believe such obvious “embellishments” as my brother having walked to school in a foot of snow and having read by the light of kerosene lamps and candles when weather knocked out electrical power for hours? They certainly don’t buy what he tells them about gas stations and the service rendered…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrunchRated 24

Zinc Wine Bar & Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Albuquerque’s Nob Hill district largely owes its emergence as the city’s first “suburb” to Route 66, the great Mother Road which carried Americans westward. Because of Route 66, the Nob Hill area has been, since before World War II, a thriving residential community replete with restaurants, motels, a modern movie theater, pharmacies and restaurants. Today it remains the city’s cultural heart and, thanks to the preservation of Route 66 era architecture, retains much of the charm that captivated west bound sojourners. New tenants such as Zinc Wine Bar & Bistro which launched in 2003 hold court in well preserved brick buildings and seem completely at home. Antique mirrors, distressed wood floors, stained glass and warm colors coalesce with intoxicating aromas…

BreakfastBrunchClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenRated 25South CarolinaSouthernUnited States

Hominy Grill – Charleston, South Carolina (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In May, 2011, Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine invited some of the most prolific culinary bloggers across the country (including yours truly) to a culinary “throw-down” of sorts. We were asked to provide a fun and humorous argument as to why our particular regional cuisine reigns supreme. Why, for example, is New Mexican food better than Cajun food in the Louisiana Bayou, barbecue in Texas or Pittsburgh’s old world cuisine? We were asked to put on our best used car salesperson hat and sell our region hard. It certainly wasn’t difficult to sell the incomparable cuisine of my beloved Land of Enchantment. In fact–and this won’t surprise any of my readers–the biggest challenge was the magazine’s imposed limit of 500 words.…

AmericanBakeryBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2020Gone But Not Forgotten

Hartford Square – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.” ~ Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Dante Alighieri’s 14th century poem Divine Comedy postulated the existence of nine circles of Hell, each circle appropriate to the sins of the damned. The fourth circle, for example, is reserved for hoarders and wasters whose punishment is to spend eternal life rolling giant boulders at one another. While gastronomy is a virtue and not a sin, were there to have been a circle in Hell for gastronomes, there’s no doubt it would have been to spend eternity eating in chain restaurants where we would be subjected to the tedium and monotony of forevermore eating homogeneous foods. It would certainly…