Freight House Kitchen & Tap – Bernalillo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Many of us look at an unused and timeworn historical building and a wave of nostalgia sweeps over us as we imagine what life was like when that building teemed with activity. Some see such a building as a pig in need of lipstick, nothing a coat of paint and a few nails can’t fix up. Others see that same edifice as having served its purpose, a structure which should be razed to make room for a modern complex. Still others view a weathered building as a thing of beauty from which they draw inspiration. For restaurant impresario Matt DiGregory, driving by the Santa Fe Freight House nearly two decades ago planted the seed for an idea that took years to germinate.

The long-time owner of The Range Café and Standard Diner drew inspiration from the two story Mission-Revival façade, envisioning it as the potential site of a restaurant with the thematic look and feel of the railroad industry which once thrived in Albuquerque. Because of the historical nature of the building, DiGregory was unable to realize that particular dream at that particular location. In 2015, he did the next best thing, launching The Freight House Kitchen & Tap Room, a restaurant inspired by the grand Santa Freight House. The restaurant is located in the yawning complex which previously housed the Flying Star on Bernalillo’s heavily trafficked Camino Del Pueblo. Fittingly, the Freight House Kitchen is in close proximity to the town’s Railrunner stop.

It’s easy to see why the Santa Fe Freight House was such an inspiration to DiGregory. Though constructed some seven decades ago and currently in disuse, the Santa Fe Freight House remains an impressive structure. Located on First Street practically beneath Lead Avenue, the building is emblazoned with red neon signage which reads “Santa Fe Freight House” flanked by the words “Rail” and “Truck.” Lintels, window sills, base and canals are made of concrete while the stucco is a greyish adobe. The Freight House was one of the last additions to the sprawling railyard made by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. It is on the National Historic Register.

The halcyon days of the railroad is revisited at DiGregory’s Freight House Kitchen, a bustling establishment with 176-seating spaces on two levels and two expansive patios. Even the restaurant’s logo is thematic, depicting a locomotive engine designated “FR8” barreling down the track. Framed vintage photographs of life around the railyards festoon the brick walls, but the true masterpiece is a painting of the restaurant’s historic namesake. Even the wait staff gets into the act, sporting shirts emblazoned with clever play-on-words slogans such as “The Chew Chew Crew” and “We Smoke The Good Stuff.”

The Freight House Web site purports to “raise the bar on bar food,” showcasing gastropub fare–high quality, freshly prepared food several orders of magnitude superior to the stereotypical pub grub of yore. During the railroad’s prosperous past, you could find food of this caliber near a railyard only at Fred Harvey establishments. The menu is very eclectic, offering both “chili” and “chile” (and you thought never the twain shall meet) as well as a number of sandwiches, burgers, plates and smoked items. Brunch is served on Sundays from 9AM to 3PM.

10 July 2018: If appetizers are the preamble to a great meal, The Freight House’s “Snacks,” an inventive array of comfort food starters, will get you started on the right foot. The Snacks menu has so many intriguing options, in fact, that ordering two…or ten would constitute a very good meal. Our early favorite is the pickled veggies, a colorful mélange of pickled al dente vegetables (crisp carrots, cauliflower, green beans and celery) arranged artfully on a rectangular plate. Sometimes pickling vegetables brings out the worse in them, particularly when those vegetables are imbued with lip-pursing sour properties that take away their native freshness and flavor. Among the pickling spices used by the Freight House chef are cardamom and juniper berries, two aromatics with strong, distinctive flavors. They impart an invigorating quality to the vegetables that you’ll enjoy immensely even if you think you don’t like vegetables.

10 July 2016: Another Freight House appetizer, the tempura green beans with Manchego, is almost a polar opposite to the pickled vegetables. Where the pickled vegetables are garden-fresh and crisp, this fried dish is crispy in other ways. Green beans are sheathed with a light tempura batter and fried to a crispy texture then sprinkled generously with shredded Manchego, a mild, nutty-flavored Spanish cheese. The green beans are served with a creamy green chile ranch dressing with a little kick and lots of flavor. Reflecting on the Freight House’s Snacks menu, you have to wonder if the chef isn’t consciously also trying to get children of all ages to eat their vegetables…and we would if they all tasted this good.

10 July 2016: From the smoker, you’ll find such summer favorites as baby back ribs, beer canned chicken, smoked prime rib (Friday and Saturday nights) and a smoked bison meatloaf served with garlic mashed potatoes topped with a barbecue glaze and green beans. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes is a comfort food combination favorite that has made generations pine for a nap immediately after consuming a plateful or two. Being a very lean meat, bison offers a slightly different textural experience than beef, but its sweeter, more intense flavor more than makes up for any textural difference. A tangy barbecue sauce is slathered on generously to imbue the meatloaf with a summery, smoky feel. You’ll want to ask for the restaurant’s green chile gravy (maybe even an extra portion) to enliven the mashed potatoes. It’s an excellent green chile gravy.

10 July 2016: Beer can chicken—sometimes called chicken on a throne or dancing chicken—earns its name because of its preparation style. An entire chicken is placed over an opened, partially-filled can of beer. The chicken must be placed on a grill in an upright position in order for this dish to work. The heat of the grill warms the can, causing the beer inside to evaporate. Ostensibly, the beer, now in gaseous state, fills the inside of the chicken, imparting moistness and flavor to the chicken. While it may disappoint some diners that you don’t taste the beer at all, most of us are in it for the chicken, not the beer. The Freight House’s BBQ beer can chicken is indeed moist and tender with a mild smokiness. Few things go better with beer can chicken than mac n’ cheese, a rich, molten, cheesy version the restaurant does well.

6 July 2018: Having spent nearly a decade in the Deep South, we enjoyed our share of fried green tomatoes.  They were invariably quite good, but had a familiar “sameness” that essentially said “no surprises here.”   Nonetheless, my friends in Mississippi will consider it sacrilege to read that New Mexico has (gasp) one-upped the great South with something even better.  There might never be a movie named for the Freight House’s fried green tomatillo, but perhaps songs or New Mexican corridos should be sung about these.  With their characteristic herbaceous notes, heartiness and citrus-like tang, tomatillos are often used on salsas, but they’re a lot more versatile than that.  That’s evident in the lightly battered, golden-hued green tomatillo orbs served with two dipping sauces, a creamy jalapeño dip and a sweet and a sweet and spicy chile sauce.  Both sauces are excellent complements to the tomatillos.

6 July 2018: The Freight House returned us to the deep South with something perhaps even more surprising than the fried green tomatillos.  There are two legendary barbecue restaurants in Alabama, Dreamland in Tuscaloosa and Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur.  We were fortunate enough to have visited Dreamland, but never made it to Big Bob Gibson’s, home of a unique white sauce we’ve never seen anywhere else.  When we noticed that the Freight House offers an Alabama white sauce with its barbecue platters, we knew we’d have to try it…and not just on smoked meats.  The tangy, peppery, smoky mayonnaise-based sauce was even better with the fried green tomatillos than the sauces with which the tomatillos were served. 

It stands to reason, therefore, that the Alabama white sauce would be superb on barbecued meats and it was (and not just because of the novelty).  We also tried the mild Caboose sauce and the Fr8train green chile sauce, but for sheer mouth-watering deliciousness, that white sauce can’t be beaten.  Conventional wisdom is not to overpower barbecue with too much sauce, but I must confess to probably going overboard, dousing both the smoked turkey and quarter-chicken with Alabama white.  Both meats are imbued a light smokiness and are as tender as they come.  BBQ platters are served with your choice of sides, Kim’s favorite being the calabasitas.

6 July 2018:  Freight House chef Matthew Schnooberger is a two-time competitor at Santa Fe’s green chile cheeseburger smackdown, an annual event sponsored by Edible Santa Fe.   It stands to reason, therefore, that he knows his way around burgers.  There are seven burgers on the menu including one aptly named tongue-incinerating burger called the Firebox which counts among its ingredients ghost pepper cheese and red chile kimchi.  It’s not for the faint of heart or docile of taste buds.  The burger menu also includes the Impossible Burger with a 100% plant-based patty, spinach and other vegan ingredients.  While both are tempting, beckoning me loudest was the eponymous Fr8 Burger. 

Usually you’ll see the Fr8 Burger’s ingredients (two thick bison patties, mushrooms, beer-braised onions and a creamy bleu cheese) only in a great dream, one of those from which you don’t want to wake up though the drool on your pillow may force you to.  Because of how lean buffalo is, mushrooms (not the stuff from a can) and bleu cheese are the perfect complementary touches.  Both add a very nice burst of earthy umami to the buffalo.  At the risk of obfuscating that umami, I dipped the burger into the wondrous Alabama white sauce in lieu of using mustard or the restaurants housemade spicy ketchup.  If there’s one complaint (and it’s a nit) about this behemoth burger, it’s that the bun just doesn’t hold up.  In the beef to bun ratio, beef dominated.  The buns fell apart.  Still, for this superb burger, a wimpy bun is a better option than a too thick, too bready bun.

11 May 2019:  Regardless of culinary concept, most restaurants across the Land of Enchantment offer a few token New Mexican dishes or at the least, New Mexican inspired dishes.  There are only a handful of those at the Freight House, but if the smoked carne adovada grilled cheese is any indication, the kitchen staff knows its way around New Mexican food, too.  This is a rather simple sandwich (smoked carne adovada, Cheddar and avocado slices on white bread), but it’s one of those that’ll imprint itself on your memories and taste buds.  The primary reason, of course, is the superb slow-cooked and melt-in-your-mouth tender carne adovada with just a kiss of smoke to compliment its delicate notes.  Avocado slices play a perfect foil, lending cool, buttery richness to a great sandwich.

11 May 2019:  Perfect as I believe my Kim to be, she’s got one flaw.  She hates fish.  Credit that antipathy with having lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with a commute that took her past odoriferous seafood processing plants on a daily basis.  Today she won’t even sample any fish dish I order, not even one as good as the hop smoked salmon (apple and pork belly hominy risotto, maple-roasted Brussels sprouts) at the Freight House.  The light hint of smoke imbues the salmon’s delicate pink flesh with flavors my palate hadn’t previously enjoyed.  It’s widely believed hops and smoke don’t work together well so you can imagine my surprise at just how good this salmon was.  The pork belly hominy risotto proved nearly as surprising and not just because rice isn’t part of the dish.  It’s great accompaniment for the salmon.  The maple-roasted Brussels sprouts–not so much and it’s not that their wretched reputation precedes them.  A less acerbic side dish would probably have worked better.

21 September 2019: After our first three visits to the Freight House, my Kim and I agreed it was a “nice enough” restaurant which we were grateful to have fairly close to our Rio Rancho home, but it was missing…something.  That something, it turns out, was pizza.  Not just any pizza.  The Freight House offers eight cast iron pies as well as a “build your own” pie option.  Available in eight- or twelve-inch sizes, each pie is prepared on a shallow cast (about three-inches deep) iron pan then served on another pan so you don’t burn yourself on the one extricated from the oven.  Forget thin and crispy.  Freight House’s thick and chewy version is the way to go.  The twelve-inch size is worth the extra four hours you’ll need to work it off on the treadmill. 

It’s long been my considered opinion that the most vastly underutilized cheese on pizza is blue cheese, the more the merrier.  Freight House’s Bianco (Romano white sauce, apples, pork belly, blue cheese, Balsamic) is an answer to a prayer.  What makes it so special is its brilliant use of counterbalancing ingredients.  Playing the pungent, sharp blue cheese against sweet baked apples is sheer genius as is the use of Balsamic and its tart, underlying sweetness against the Romano white sauce.  Then as if an answered prayer could possibly get any better, the Bianco is just as good cold as it was just out-of-the-oven.

21 September 2019:  In 2019, perhaps the most news-worthy tidbits regarding America’s true pastime (eating) may have been the chicken sandwich war waged between Chick-Fil-A and Popeye’s and the rise of the “impossible burger,” the faux meat burger which ostensibly looks, sizzles, feels, and even “bleeds” like a traditional hamburger.  I was certain the most impossible thing about it would be getting my Kim to try it.  Her experiences with vegetarian and vegan burgers have been only slightly more pleasant than me watching a commercial for The View.  You can imagine my surprise when she ordered the Impossible (tomato sauce, cheese, New Mexico green chile, Impossible sausage, mushrooms and onions). 

Yes, after “mastering” the burger, Impossible Foods decided to tackle sausage, the ugly, redheaded stepchild cousin of bacon.  It would be disingenuous of me to declare that Impossible sausage tastes just like the real stuff, especially since the phalanx of other ingredients did a pretty good job of masking the flavor of the sausage.  The green chile, in particular, actually bites back the way it should. Scrape off some of the splotchy tomato sauce (or distribute it more uniformly across the entire pie) and this is a pretty good pizza.  Because the cornicione (an Italian term for the “lip” or puffy outer edge of the pizza) is rather thick, make sure to have some of the Alabama white sauce for dipping.

10 July 2016: The Freight House dessert menu is a winner, offering a number of innovative options that will make choosing a challenge. If it’s on the menu, one unique and delicious option is the olive oil rosemary ice cream cake topped with a peach compote. Ice cream is made on the premises in flavors that go well beyond vanilla and chocolate. Olive oil and rosemary is one such example. Too much rosemary and it could overwhelm the flavor profile. The olive oil also poses textural challenges. Kudos to the chef for optimizing the proportions of each ingredient to create a deliciously decadent (without being overly rich) ice cream . The peach compote serves as a very nice foil.

If a visit to the Freight House Kitchen & Tap Room doesn’t inspire you to travel the rails, it will inspire you to come back to see what the inventive kitchen staff is cooking up. It’s bound to be good.

Freight House Kitchen & Tap
200 South Camino Del Pueblo
Bernalillo, New Mexico
LATEST VISIT: 21 September 2019
1st VISIT: 10 July 2016
# OF VISITS: 4
RATING: 21
COST: $$
BEST BET: Pickled Veggies, Tempura Green Beans with Manchego, Bison Meatloaf, Olive Oil Rosemary Ice Cream Cake, BBQ Bear Can Chicken, Fr8 Burger, Fried Green Tomatillos, Smoked Turkey, BBQ Chicken, Hope Smoked Salmon, Smoked Carne Adovada Grilled Cheese, Bianco Pizza, Impossible Pizza