In 2005, Slate Street and an eponymous bistro just north of Lomas became the toast (a garlicky bruschetta) of the town. The Slate Street Cafe opened its doors in July, 2005 in a heretofore lightly trafficked, relatively unknown street north of Lomas. Nestled in the heart of the legal district, the Slate Street Cafe is so, make that Soho cool. Its sleek, modern, high-ceilinged dining room, looming wine bar and capacious patio is frequented by some of Albuquerque’s most hip and beautiful people. It’s a breath of fresh air in a burgeoning downtown district where revitalization doesn’t always appear to be working.

The Slate Street Cafe is the braintrust of a proven and very successful pedigree whose bloodline includes founding chef Albert Bilotti (Al’s NYPD and Kanome) and owner Myra Ghattas whose family owns Duran’s Central Pharmacy. The menu might best be described as eclectic, contemporary and fun with a playful twist to American comfort food favorites such as buttermilk fried chicken, chicken soup, mac and cheese, fish and chips and even homemade cupcakes for dessert. For breakfast, green eggs and ham might just be what the doctor ordered–and not just if your physician is Doctor Seuss. Slate Street’s version of green eggs and ham is an omelet with green chile courtesy of Duran’s.

The ambiance at the 7,400 square foot “bistro with a Western accent” is decidedly contemporary with an energizing bright color pallet.  The restaurant’s commodious loft serves as a wine bar (Ghattas is a certified sommelier) where periodic wine tasting events are held.  A great view of the dining room is available.  A cold Sunday in December, 2023 confirmed suspicions I’ve had for quite a while.  For the majority of the time (more than an hour) in which we enjoyed our brunch, The Dude and I were the only males at the restaurant…not that either of us minded (though The Dude got much more attention).

With something for everyone, it’s easy to see why long lines typify the lunch hour and why the Slate Street Cafe is the place to be on weekends for brunch. An exhilarating menu will challenge you to limit your selection as you really will want to order more than one of each starter, entree and dessert. The menu has changed over the years.  Rather than subject you to reading about items no longer on the menu, I’ve listed them in an “archived” section below the review.  Here’s hoping they return to the menu someday.

19 September 2008: The Slate Burger crafted with black angus beef and served on a ciabatta bun is so good, it (this may sound like heresy coming from me) doesn’t need green chile. As with many New Mexicans, green chile has become a “crutch” and it’s hard to conceive of a burger being good without it. While you can ask for green chile on your Slate Burger, it’s absolutely unnecessary. The main reason is the perfectly seasoned, perfectly prepared to your exacting specifications (it’s perfect at medium) all natural, local beef sourced from The Western Way in Moriarty. It’s a high quality beef with nary a hint of sinew or excess fat. The Slate Burger is an excellent burger for which you can pick your toppings (such as cheese, bacon, green chile, avocado) from a bevy of fresh ingredients!

3 August 2010: Perhaps even better, if possible, as a morning sandwich option is a brunch-only offering of sausage sliders. Housemade green chile Cheddar biscuits are the canvas for thick disks of green chile turkey sausage, giving you an eye-opening one, two punch of green chile to wake you up. If all that green chile doesn’t do the trick, the chipotle gravy will. It looks innocuous, just like any other brown gravy, but it packs a piquant punch. Unlike the flaky, fall-apart biscuits that don’t hold together, the green chile biscuits hold up well against the moistness of the absolutely delicious turkey sausage.

Slate Street’s fried egg sandwich (fried egg, white Cheddar and applewood smoked bacon on toasted ciabatta) will have you forever swearing off Egg McMuffins. It’s a delicious two fisted masterpiece that defines the best in breakfast sandwiches. Applewood smoked bacon is magnificent on its own, each slice a thick and crispy best of the breakfast table example of pure deliciousness. The bacon has a sweet-savory flavor combination resultant from a brown sugar and maple sugar glaze baked into each glorious piece. It is on par with the award-winning honey-chile glazed bacon at the Gold Street Caffe. It’s not the restaurant’s most celebrated sandwich, however. That honor goes to the bacon, lettuce and fried green tomato sandwich which was named one of the city’s 12 yummiest sandwiches in Albuquerque The Magazine‘s annual food and wine magazine for 2012.

10 December 2023:  A guy goes to a taco stand and asks for their best taco. The taco guy says, “That would be lengua.” The customer says, “No way! I would never eat tongue—it came out of the mouth of an animal!” “Well,” says the taco guy, “how about some huevos rancheros?”  Yep.  There are people who won’t eat eggs because of where they come from.  (Contrary to popular belief, Food Network Gliteratti Guy Fieri isn’t among them.  He doesn’t like eggs because as a ten-year-old he opened up an egg and got a clear understanding of how chickens grow).

Having eaten balut (a fertilized bird egg  incubated for a period of 14 to 21 days then steamed) I obviously have no aversion to eggs in any state.   Thankfully, however, I don’t often eat things out of curiosity or on a dare.  Perhaps to the detriment of my once svelte body, I eat eggs because they’re delicious.  The huevos rancheros at Slate Street are among the very best I’ve ever had, a truly enjoyable repast of white Cheddar, hash browns, and Christmas style chile on top of white corn tortillas from Sabroso, an Albuquerque tortilleria.  These tortillas have a pronounced corn flavor that elevates the dish.  So does the red and green chile from Duran’s.  The green chile, in particular, is fiery and delicious with fruity notes and real heat.  Though hash browns are usually a “take it or leave” it dish, they’re made wonderfully palatable by the chile.

10 December 2023:  Cultural appropriation has–in the age of wokeism–become a contentious term.  Pailin Chonchitmant, a renowned author and chef doesn’t like one manifestation of cultural appropriation most of us don’t give a second thought about.  Specifically, he says “Asian salad is my biggest pet peeve in American food media, food blogs, and restaurant menus.  To me, it represents how Asian people have been treated in North America—as a monolith, as walking stereotypes, and without respect.”  Wow!  I had never considered that the very idea of an “Asian salad” could be considered cultural appropriation.

Although most Asian cultures enjoy vegetables dishes, the notion of eating uncooked leafy vegetables is only now starting to gain momentum in the Asian continent.   Slate Street’s Asian salad (Romaine, spring mix, pea shoots, shredded carrots, Mandarin oranges, cashews, saallions, crispy rice noodles, citrus sesame vinaigrette) may not be authentically “Asian” whatever that means, but it’s a compilation of fresh, crisp and delicious ingredients.  It’s at least as authentically Asian as Rachel Ray’s abominable posole is Mexican and it’s certainly better tasting.

Slate Street Cafe restaurant has become famous locally for its gourmet cupcakes and may have, in fact, been responsible for the introduction of cupcakes as a viable dessert option in the Duke City. Gourmet cupcake favorites include chocolate with cream cheese frosting, coconut, blueberry with lemon icing and a Boston cream cupcake drizzled in chocolate ganache and filled with vanilla custard. The cupcakes are so good many guests don’t realize there’s more on the dessert menu than these decadent gems

10 December 2023:  Daniel Handler who penned several children’s books under the nom d’plume Lemony Snicket jokes that “the moral of Snow White is never eat apples.”   Aargh!  Without apples, there would be no apple delight (sliced apples and walnuts in a caramel sauce within a puff pastry topped with vanilla ice cream), a dessert that truly lives up to its name.  The apples are perfectly al dente; the walnuts provide a delightful savory-sweet contrast and the premium ice cream is perhaps the only thing that can top this dessert.

Slate Street Cafe is pure gold, one of Albuquerque’s paragons of the locavore movement and one of Albuquerque’s best reasons to visit downtown. The restaurant partners with local farmers and producers who provide fresh, high-quality ingredients ranging from organic eggs at breakfast to heirloom tomatoes at dinner. A second-story wine loft is reputed to offer exquisite wine pairings that complement the restaurant’s innovative menu.

Slate Street Cafe
515 Slate, N.W.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 243-2210
Web Site | Facebook Page
LATEST VISIT: 10 December 2023
# OF VISITS: 7
RATING: 23
COST: $$
BEST BET: Fried Olives Stuffed With Garlic & Boursin Cheese; Bruschetta; Fried Chicken; Brown Bag Fish & Chips; Green Eggs & Ham; Sausage Sliders, Bread Pudding; Boston Cream Cupcake; Green Chile Mac & Cheese

ARCHIVED
(Items No Longer On The Menu as of December, 2023)

19 September 2008: While many Duke City restaurants offer Bruschetta (grilled bread rubbed with garlic and garnished with sundry toppings), a Tuscan favorite, the Slate Street Cafe does it best. For a pittance you can have three different Bruschetta from a list of eight. Bountiful portions of lightly toasted bread two can share become the consummate canvas for such toppings as tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil; Feta, sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts; calabasitas and queso blanco; muffaletta (salami, provalone and olive relish) and blue cheese, spinach and Balsamic reduction. The melding of ingredients makes for lively combinations that both complement and contrast in delightfully tasty ways.

Johnny Carson once defined happiness as “finding two olives in your martini when you’re hungry.” I’d wager he’d find happiness in Slate Street’s fried olives stuffed with garlic and Boursin cheese, a salty, albeit wonderful starter option. Having lived in the deep South for eight years, we thought we’d tried everything (pickles, okra, tomatoes, etc.) that could be fried, but fried olives were new to us. Seemingly equal flavor pronouncements between garlic, olives and cheese will tantalize your taste buds.

Lunchtime entrees are labeled Breakfast All Day, Salads, Sandwiches, Bowls & Entrees and Sides.  Among the bowls (or is it the entrees) is brown bag fish and chips with a twist. Instead of the usual fried cod, you’re treated to a Guinness stout-battered salmon and house-made chips (American, not British) copiously sprinkled with sea salt served in a warm brown paper bag. We eschewed a very good lemon-basil tartar sauce for malt vinegar in honor of our former home in England. Biting into filets of lightly-breaded, pinkish salmon instead of the boring white flesh of cod is strange at first, but you’ll be won over quickly. The homemade chips, though paper-thin and wonderfully crisp, are perhaps just a tad salty.

19 September 2008: The menu includes several seafood entrees, including  fish tacos, an entree few restaurants in New Mexico seem to do well. The Slate Street Cafe’s twist on this California favorite is to compose the tacos on deep fried corn shells, fashioning two crispy corn cups engorged with sundry ingredients. Similar to tostadas, these tacos are a challenge to eat and you might have to dredge the ingredients out of the cup with a fork because the shell falls apart otherwise. Insofar as taste, these are quite good with citrusy, briny and acidic tastes melding together quite well.

3 August 2010:  Sadly no longer on the menu as of December, 2023 is the pear and Stilton salad constructed with walnuts, Stilton blue cheese, field greens and a port vinaigrette dressing. Stilton blue cheese, a pungent cheese produced only in three English counties, is often eaten with pears, a combination that pits the strongly flavored cheese with the tangy-sweetness of pears. It’s a combination that works, as does the addition of walnuts, not sugared but in their natural state. The field greens are fresh, crisp and a perfect vehicle for the port vinaigrette, a lip-pursing tangy dressing.

Salty might be the first adjective I’d used to describe the Cafe’s buttermilk fried chicken, (not on the menu as of December,  2023) but I’d also have to add zesty and mouth-watering. This free-range poultry features three prodigious pieces of mostly white meat with a thick coating of buttermilk-enriched batter seasoned with garlic and red pepper. Not quite as Cayenne potent as Popeye’s chicken, it’s as juicy and flavorful as any chicken we’ve had in the Duke City (which has never been known as a great city for fried chicken).

28 September 2015: Green chile mac and cheese, on the other hand, may eventually grow into yet another dish for which Albuquerque gains acclaim. Slate Street Cafe’s version is among the very best we’ve had: three cheeses–sharp Cheddar, Havarti and Gouda–and rotelli pasta with a pleasantly piquant green chile. It’s an adult mac and cheese with plenty of flavor, richness and personality. The cheeses and green chile go so well together that the flavor of this dish is a sum of this part, not distinct components. That’s how well the ingredients complement one another.

3 August 2010: There is, for example, chocolate cake like your mother used to make. There’s a bread pudding with a warm rum sauce–and there’s also a banana split big enough for two. This banana split includes some departures from the conventional Dairy Queen style banana split and its de rigeur vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice creams. The Slate Street Cafe’s version replaces the strawberry ice cream with a rich, flavorful and tangy blueberry ice cream and its chocolate ice cream has more of an adult (less cloying) flavor. The bananas are caramelized and both peanuts and cashews are piled on top of the real whipped cream for a nice salty taste contrast. This is a calorie-laden bit of heaven.