Alex De Vore
Rio Chama still serves up a mean steak, like this dry-aged ribeye.
Here’s the thing about a $69 steak: It comes with certain expectations.
Of course, you want your steak to be cooked as requested, to be of a certain size and quality, but when any dish clocks in at a price point like that, a restaurant implies they’re going to take care of you as well. Fine dining prices equals fine dining service, or should. At Santa Fe’s much-storied Rio Chama Prime Steakhouse (414 Old Santa Fe Trail, (505) 955-0675) from local food conglomerate Santa Fe Dining (which owns La Casa Sena and Maria’s among others), this was not the case, however, at least not for a companion and I during a recent dinner. It’s hard to tell whether our experience was the product of the restaurant going through growing pains as former Luminaria chef Tony Smith takes over the top job, but after spending nearly $300 on an evening best described as “fine,” I’m not sure I’m eager to find out what’s next on the Rio Chama docket.
And it all began in a windowless side room. I won’t presume to know the machinations of our host, but walking beyond the windows that spilled the cool blue light of evening into the ancient building on Old Santa Fe Trail certainly did sting. Nevertheless, Rio Chama’s interior remains a tastefully appointed affair no matter where you’re seated. The part I loved less came in the form of our server, a very friendly but timid man who seemed terrified to meet us, who never once crumbed our table and who needed prompting to remove plates that were clearly cluttering up the joint. Perhaps most bizarre was when he boxed leftovers from an appetizer right at our table. I’m not sure if this was some newfangled fine dining practice, but I’d have been booted from the hallowed halls of Santacafé forever had I done such a thing while employed there.
We made an aggressive approach to the menu to kick things off, ordering double cut onion rings ($14), coconut shrimp with a sweet and spicy agave dipping sauce ($22) and a beet salad split for two ($17; $3 extra for the split). While the first two starters tasted akin to something one might find under a heat lamp at Sizzler, the beet salad was one of the more notable appetizers I’ve had in a local restaurant lately. The beets were truly fresh and came in generous portions, and in conjunction with the leafy arugula and fresh burrata cheese, the salad was not only bright and tasty, but zesty—a fine amuse that perked up my tastebuds and piqued my interest for the dishes to come. Perhaps the best part of the salad were two ingredients I had not thought to pair: orange segments and piñon. The resultant flavor combo makes perfect sense now. We did not finish the onion rings, and though the shrimp fared better, it was ultimately unremarkable.
For our main courses, we chose a greatest hits of steak: the prime New York strip ($55) and the 45-day dry-aged ribeye ($69), 16 ounces of each. I’m pleased to report Rio Chama does indeed still offer a mean steak, and whereas some might underestimate the simple pleasure of a piece of meat cooked how you envision it, the kitchen respected my request for the ribeye to come mostly medium with maybe just a little bit of pink inside. Same goes for my companion, who went for the classic medium cook for her New York strip. To round out the meal, we ordered sides of creamed spinach and a wild mushroom and garlic melange. While the mushrooms were a treat of flavors that worked well with the meat, the creamed spinach felt more like a holdover from some antiquated ‘60s take on the steakhouse. Still, what does it mean when diners spent a solid five minutes discussing how novel it is to get steaks cooked to their specifications? It means they’ve been disappointed before.
The steak cookery and seasoning pleased our palates; not so for the desserts. My companion’s lemon-lime cheesecake ($12) sounded pleasant but lacked promised citrus and tasted far too sweet. My insistence that ordering creme brulee ($12)—that old fine dining standby—was a good way by which to judge a dessert menu came with disappointment, too—listless, flavorless disappointment. The dessert became a noteworthy punctuation to the meal, a reminder that what we’d just experienced had been serviceable at best. Restaurants have their off nights, certainly, but with prices like Rio Chama’s that becomes harder to justify, especially in a city where numerous other steak options abound.
