Call it the City Delicious
Best Restaurant Picks from a Devoted Foodie
Photo by Douglas Merriam
Hebi fish with grilled endive by Mauka Chef Joel Coleman
Food + Dining Editor John Vollertsen spent another 12 months wining and dining in his favorite food town. Occasionally he was whining and dining, but when it was good, it was very good. Here are his votes for the best of the 2008 eating season.
Best Restaurant of 2008
Mauka, 544 Agua Fria, 505-984-1969
Young chef Joel Coleman’s Hawaiian-Asian-French fusion menu garnered him the “One-to-Watch” award in our 2007 Best Restaurants round-up, and he surpasses my prediction every time I dine there. Coleman is the most creative chef in town, whether combining ingredients like red cabbage, grapefruit segments, spicy shrimp, curried peanuts, and fish sauce in a salad, or allowing pristine fish to shine alone, as in the Alaskan halibut ceviche with steamed Napa cabbage. This dedicated chef works hard developing his craft, and his amazing understanding of hot, sweet, salty, and sour deserves to be savored alongside the talents of Eric DiStefano, Martin Rios, and the Compound’s Mark Kiffin. My palate is provoked with each bite, and I am always intrigued.
Best Bang for Your Buck
Tune-Up Café, 115 Hickox, 505-983-7060
Tiny in size but mighty in flavor, this cost-conscious café is a tasty, tuned-up version of the previous tenant, Dave’s Not Here. The breakfast and lunch menus straddle both New Mexican treats and Salvadoran specialties, with terrific burgers as well, including buffalo and a vegan brown-rice-and-nut version. The Tune-Up has the best fries in town, and Charlotte Rivera, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Jesus, makes incredible homemade desserts, like plump banana cupcakes and peanut butter cookie sandwiches stuck together with Nutella. At press time, Tune-Up was planning to open for dinner, with a beer-and-wine license to follow. This is truly a great neighborhood hangout.
Best Newcomer
Vinaigrette, 709 Don Cubero, 505-820-9205
Even before this casual salad-themed café opened, owner Erin Wade’s vision burned brightly in her head; the perky Harvard grad has been planning it for five years. There is green both on the plate and in her personal convictions—all of the composted leftovers go to feed pigs on her farm. In the summer, many ingredients will come from the farm, as bountiful salads become a main meal with the addition of seafood and meat. Themed salads, like Asian beef with grilled New York strip, rice noodles, and mint, are served alongside such classics as Cobb, Caesar, and Greek. If dropping a few pounds is on your list of New Year’s resolutions, the healthy and tasty menu at Vinaigrette should help you in your quest. Eating well never tasted so good.
Best Red or Green
Lamy Station Café, 150 Old Lamy Trail, Lamy, NM, 505-466-1904
This lovingly restored railroad dining car parked alongside the Lamy train station, 20 miles south of Santa Fe, is a charming dining stop that tips its hat to history and good food. At the holidays, it makes even better sense to exclaim, “Christmas!” when asked which chile sauce you want on your plump omelet at brunch—both green and red are delicious here. Plus, the green-chile stew with chicken and pintos will make your taste buds jump, packing a punch with flavors chile-heads love. Dinner was added recently, so call ahead to check days and times. If you were thinking about leaving New Mexico, you might reconsider after a taste of the crimson red or the chunky green.
Best Service
Geronimo, 724 Canyon, 505-982-1500
Although Geronimo has traversed a rocky road this year, with the exit of creator Cliff Skoglund and chef Eric DiStefano—smoothed somewhat by the addition of Martin Rios as partner and culinary director—the service continues to be seamless. In one of Santa Fe’s prettiest dining rooms, knowledgeable, caring servers who take pride in their work show off Chef Rios’s food. Whether pouring creamy corn chowder around “deconstructed” ingredients with a flourish, or waxing lyrical over Rios’s food-play of flavored foams, powders, and crystals, the staff shines. They manage to be present when needed and imperceptible when not. Kudos to the new partners for continuing the upscale traditions.
Best Comeback
Coyote Café, 132 Water, 505-983-1615
It took the considerable culinary talents of Eric DiStefano to breathe new life and edible energy into the downtown giant-of-a-restaurant, which was headed the way of the dinosaur after 20 years of desert living. Coyote’s big flavors and big portions are testaments to the big chef’s knack for reinventing Southwestern cuisine from original creator Mark Miller, while infusing the eclectic menu with world flavors and tasty tricks. Caesar salads get a nifty futomaki-roll treatment, and the “sloooow”-cooked, Syrah-braised prime beef short ribs melt in your mouth. The casual outdoor Coyote Cantina may rock all summer long, but it is in the indoor restaurant that DiStefano shines.
