Alex De Vore
Yes, the crust on Esquina Pizza’s margherita is as delicious as it looks.
Having recently enjoyed one of the more memorable evenings of my life at chef Nathan Mayes’ Paloma, I’ve been keeping an eye on his new pizza joint Esquina (403 S Guadealupe St., (505) 303-3034) since it was announced earlier this year.
Turns out Mayes was working on his pizza plan behind the scenes during the pandemic, reading bread and baking books to perfect his crust, considering ingredients that are as local as possible and, if not from around here, fresh and sustainably farmed; installing a wood-fired pizza oven in secret and putting together a staff that could make the neopolitan-inspired recipe he developed. Now, it seems, Esquina is here to stay, at least on Fridays and Saturdays from 4-9 pm for now.
“I think first and foremost really what’s driving it is wanting to eat pizza,” Mayes tells SFR. “It was year three at Paloma that I had this thought: ‘Man, it would be cool if...we could put a pizza oven in there.’ It’s the same idea as Paloma, to take something familiar to people, familiar items that are accessible, and to put a little bit of a creative edge on it.”
Last weekend, I sampled that creative edge, and while I think Mayes is not fully there yet, Esquina is beyond promising, and he’s still making some of the tastiest pizza in town. Esquina’s pizzas are and will continue to be evolving based on seasonally-available ingredients as well as Mayes’ own prowess. In his schooling days, he attended the Culinary Institute of America for just one year before accepting an internship at Coyote Café under the legendary Eric DiStefano at 21—Mayes is a chef who knows what he’s doing, and to whom ideas of sustainability and quality matter. Still, he says, he’s relatively new to the pizza game, and as he gains knowledge and confidence, we’re bound to see improvement.
Currently, Esquina’s menu includes pies like the margherita with mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil ($17), as well as a simple pesto pie with parm and mozz ($21); a white pie with ricotta cream, fontina, pecorino and mozzaralla ($19) and a garden pie with garlic oil, spinach, cherry tomatoes, basil, roasted mushrooms, onions, olives and mozz ($21) sound phenomenal, and you’ll find meat-forward pizzas, too, like the Leo’s with sausage, kale and Calabrian chile ($23) and the hot pepper with pepperoni and calabrese ($23).
Myself and my dining companion settled on the margherita (as I’ve said before, it’s a great standby pie through which one can gauge the quality of more boutique-y pizza restaurants) and the spinach and mushroom with garlic cream, fontina and mozzarella ($23). I admit, we felt the sticker shock of those prices, especially for 12-ish-inch pizzas that cost a fraction elsewhere. Days later, when I ask Mayes about the steep cost, he tells me it’s a combination of things like ingredient costs and staff wages. It’s important to him, he tells me, that his staff is paid properly, he also wants the best ingredients for his from-scratch food. That includes particular things, like a specific type and diameter of pepperoni he had to track down through a special order with his produce supplier, a non-bromated two-part flour he developed himself using a combination of double zero and Sonoran wheat flours, plus Bianco Dinapoli tomatoes, for the sauce. Mayes understands the prices might dissuade some diners, but he knows what he wants to make and serve, and thinks the premium is worth it.
“Restaurants are getting pinched with rising inflation and shortages,” Mayes explains. “It’s tough for all restaurants...but it’s the price to cover the quality of food.”
Hefty price or no, his plan to zero in on quality works. The margherita’s crust had that borderline sour taste you want in a from-scratch pizza, ditto the char and crunch. The sweetness of the sauce blended brilliantly with the creaminess of the melted cheese—an excellent contrast. The spinach and mushroom was the clear winner, though, with the fragrant, earthen aroma of the mushrooms first dominating the taste, then giving way to the brighter flavors of the spinach and garlic.
Esquina also boasts a gelato menu from Paloma’s Executive Pastry Chef Jessica Brewer. On the night we ordered, the restaurant was offering a few varieties ($7 each), including olive oil, for which I’ll absolutely return, pistachio and straciatella. Obviously we went with the one that had chocolate shavings. Sadly, the gelato was more icy than creamy, and this one stung a bit, particularly since Brewer has proven herself a master of desserts. Mayes says she’ll continue to develop dessert options just like at Paloma, though, and this is also a chef who never let us down before.
Santa Fe diners can consider the current operation Phase 1 of a three-phase plan.
“We’re establishing the product, and I think Phase 2 is putting in some kind of seating,” Mayes says. “We have a small patio we’re going to be building out kind of behind the Paloma patio, and in Phase 3, the goal is to have full-on beer and wine service.”
He also notes he’ll get green chile on the menu just as soon as he can get it fresh.
“We haven’t had any pushback yet, but it’s inevitable,” he says with a laugh. “We’re just trying to keep things seasonal and at their best.”
