Scarpas Brick Oven Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico
As an essayist of the New Mexico culinary condition, it’s easy to be lured in by new restaurants, those bright and shiny beacons of promise. Sadly, critics (and those of us who play them in movies and television) gravitate toward new restaurants with the expectation of newness, something heretofore different and amazing. We often do this at the expense of tried-and-true, established and proven restaurants which haven’t ever let us down. For every new restaurant I visit, there are hundreds of old favorites to which I don’t return often enough. One such personal favorite is Scarpas, a long-time fixture on Academy. Prior to our visit in January, 2023, our previous visit was in December, 2006. That’s far too long! Academy…