It’s late morning, and Eduardo Rodriguez and I are sharing a booth in a sun-splashed corner of Zacatlán (317 Aztec St., (505) 780-5174), his Mexican-Southwestern restaurant on Aztec Street in Santa Fe.
The chef and restaurateur tells me his hometown, the central Mexican city of Zacatecas, isn’t all that different from Santa Fe. The streets in both, he says, are narrow and winding, lined with pinkish-orange buildings that acquire an enchanting glow just before nightfall. In Zacatecas, just like in Santa Fe, chile peppers reign supreme, and grow happily in the arid, high-altitude countryside.
“People in Zacatecas feel a kinship with Santa Fe,” Rodriguez says. “We understand each other.”
He is patient and poised, but also excited having recently returned from a trip to Mexico, from which his mind is swimming with new culinary ideas.
“I tried an amazing miel de maguey (agave syrup) in Oaxaca,” he says, eyes sparkling. “You don’t see it used much here, and I can’t wait to experiment with it.”
Rodriguez has always felt comfortable in the kitchen. He remembers watching his abuela stirring gigantic pots of mole, adding this and that, letting things simmer low and slow.
“Growing up in a big family,” he says, “there was always an important meal to cook because there was always something or someone to celebrate.”
When Rodriguez moved to Santa Fe as a teenager in 1994, he was following in the footsteps of his two big brothers, Jose and Juan, who worked in the kitchen of Coyote Café.
“There was so much energy there,” Rodriguez says. “The food was exciting and different, and people were calling [Coyoté Cafe chef] Mark Miller the padre of Southwestern cooking.”
Rodriguez got his start washing dishes at Geronimo, another then-new and buzzy restaurant, helmed by the late chef Eric DiStefano. Rodriguez worked hard, and DiStefano noticed. Within a few months, the young dishwasher was promoted to the line, cutting vegetables and filleting fish; by the end of his 13-year tenure at Geronimo, Rodriguez was DiStefano’s right-hand man. The two chefs moved from Geronimo to Coyote Café in 2008, working side by side until DiStefano died unexpectedly in 2016.
“There was chaos when Eric died,” Rodriguez recalls. “But I knew how to run the kitchen, so I stayed, and stepped into the position of executive chef.”
As time went by, Rodriguez found himself yearning to open a restaurant of his own.
“During my 13 years at Coyote Café and in the 13 years at Geronimo before that,” he explains, “lots of people believed in me and encouraged me to do my own thing.”
In response, Rodriguez opened Zacatlán in summer 2020.
“It was a risk, and I knew that,” he says of launching a restaurant during a pandemic, “but it was time for a change, and Zacatlán is my baby.”
This baby, now in its fifth year, has been a success. In 2021, Zacatlán was named one of the best new American restaurants by USA Today’s 10Best readers/experts poll. The next year, Zacatlán was a semifinalist for a James Beard Award in the Best New Restaurant category and, just last spring, Rodriguez nabbed a Beard nomination for Best Chef: Southwest.
Just like Santa Fe, Zacatecas was founded by treasure-seeking, 16th-century Spanish conquistadors who tried to make their new environs as European as possible. For centuries before the Spanish arrived, though, these places were traversed by groups of Indigenous people. They hunted rabbit and deer, and planted maize, beans and medicinal herbs. Relying on the land for sustenance engenders a lifelong reverence for it.
“My mother lives here in Santa Fe now,” Rodriguez says, “but grew up in Zacatecas. Whenever she’s outside, she still scans the ground for edible plants. She’ll point out things that other people don’t even notice, and says, ‘you can eat that,’ or ‘don’t eat that.’”
Rodriguez approaches cooking with the same passion for finding and sharing good things. Though he’s planning to tweak a couple menu items at Zacatlán, he knows better than to shake it up too much.
“I’m more interested in refining the recipes that people come here to eat,” he says, “not completely changing them.”
Rodriguez is always learning, and always innovating. During a trip to the Yucatán several years ago, he watched a man preparing ceviche with impressive speed.
“He filleted the fish beautifully,” he says, “but then discarded the carcass once he got the meat out.”
It didn’t sit right with Rodriguez.
“My abuela used all of the animal when she cooked, so that’s what I try to do,” he says.
At Zacatlán, for example, Rodriguez’s red snapper is shaped into a curved, canoe-like vessel—fins and all—lightly fried, then stuffed with crab and saffron risotto. Technique and creativity similarly shine in Rodriguez’s Robin Egg dessert, which comprises a Tiffany-blue, molded chocolate shell on a bed of crumbled biscochitos and chocolate mousse. Inside, a quivering, gelled mango “yolk” rests on puffy coconut cream “egg whites.” It’s over the top, and that’s how Rodriguez likes it.
“When you go to a vegan restaurant,” he says, “you don’t order a cheeseburger. When you come here, you don’t order food that you can easily cook at home.”