Make Your Reservations
T-minus one week til Thanksgiving and The Fork wanted to let you know that we've heard your repeated and increasingly rude emails loud and clear—you wanna know what restaurants do Thanksgiving stuff. And so, after making our intern call around to get some information, we've whittled down the data into a reasonable number of places. We warn you, some of it's not cheap, but then, when we as people deign to go out and eat on holidays—and, yes, we understand that not everyone loves them or wants to see their family or celebrates or whatever—we're keeping people away from whatever plans they have. Oh, we've known service folk, and they're mostly happy to do it, just remember to be nice, is mainly what we're saying. But, yeah—here's some places around town doing stuff for Thanksgiving:
The downtown spot with the killer wine shop and the waiters who sing is indeed open for T-Day from 2-8 pm. They've got a 3-course prix fixe meal including a Belgian endive salad, a sage-roasted turkey (free range, no less) that sounds so good we might start eating meat again—plus vegetarian options like a stuffed eggplant that sounds so good we probably won't start eating meat again after all. Then there's the pumpkin pie, natch, and candied butternut squash. Dang! It'll set you back $75 per person. Oh, and La Casa Sena also does
to-go T-Day dinners for either 8 or 10 people, and those'll run you $179.95-$199.95.
Hardly surprising since it's in the same biz family as La Casa Sena, Rio Chama Steakhouse has more of an a la carte thing going on. Find several salad choices like caesar and wedge and the Capitol with jicama, mixed greens and grape tomaters, plus deep fried turkey, prime rib, salmon and—gulp—a filet mignon. They're open from 11 am-6 pm.
Recently entering into the Quinn Stephenson family (Stephenson also helms Coyote Café), Santacafé is Thanksgiving-it up from noon to 6:30 pm and also boasts a 3-course prix fixe meal at $85 per person. The eatery's famous calamari will of course be available alongside seared salmon, poached lobster, turkey roulade with giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, sourdough stuffing and green bean casserole, plus pumpkin pie, choco mousse and lots more.
Chef Martín Rios has numerous Beard Award nominations under his belt and is totally open for Thanksgiving from 1-9 pm. The prix fixe menu will set you back $55 for adults and $50 for kids, and it includes items like a pumpkin soup with compressed apple and candied pecans, Parisian gnocchi, seared scallops and pork belly plus maple roasted turkey (organic!) with chicken sausage-cornbread stuffing and an entire vegetarian tasting plate with a wild mushroom and heirloom tomato tart and squash stuffed with sprouted grains (that one is apparently subject to change, though, so maybe ask when you call to make a reservation). The caramelized pumpkin cheesecake on the dessert menu sounds insane as does the dark choco cake with poached blackberries.
They shan't be hosting restaurant service on the big day, but if you're headed someplace and need a last-minute treat, the Maven's retail baked goods section is open from 9 am-noon.
At $60 a pop, 315 Restaurant & Wine Bar's Thanksgiving Day seems super-sweet. Find ricotta dumplings with wild mushrooms and wood fire-roasted turkey, steak frites as well as classic pumpkin pie and pots de créme. That's not even mentioning the kickass wine list. They're open 2 pm-6 pm.
Up on Canyon Road where the galleries are hot and the food is also hot, The Compound hosts another 3-course prix fixe menu, this one with selections like a duck confit casoncelli with baby potatoes, potato and apple, crab cakes, Embudo Farms turkey (that's the place where they're super nice to the turkeys) and house made ice creams and sorbets alongside pumpkin-crusted bread pudding. Dang! Find also special drinks like the Sage Advice—vodka with fresh sage and lemon juice plus ginger simple syrup. Dang again! They're open 3-9 pm and you'll spend $90 per adult, $30 per kiddo.
Also on Canyon, Geronimo joins in the chorus of prix fixe menus with starters of slow-braised pork ribs, cauliflower soup, poached Maine lobster and more. For mains, choose from a crazy wide selection of dishes including steak, a brown butter, sage and maple-basted Amish turkey and, like, a bunch of other great sounding things. No word on dessert yet, but we bet it rules. They're open from 3-9 pm and it'll run you $95 per person.
Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi Restaurant
More prix fixe fun is going down near the Plaza with chef Peter O'Brien's Thanksgiving madness! At $95 for adults and $45 for the kids, O'Brien's menu includes starters like roasted beet salad and autumn squash ravioli, mains like filet of bison and organic free range turkey and a pumpkin créme brulee or apple strudel for dessert.
Perhaps you're seeing a pattern emerge—one of fine dining and admittedly hefty price tags. But y'know, that's just kinda the way it goes when one dines out on holidays, and besides, some of these foods sound incredible, so … go wild. We're also sure these can't possibly be every single restaurant in town doing something, so experiment, have fun, try to survive your Trumpy family members and learn about the real history of the holiday. We're down with giving thanks and being excellent to one another, but don't forget that the fake Pilgrim story is bogus. Anyway, be cool. And Happy Thanksgiving!
Also
-Holy smokes, get this—the Santa Fe Spirits mothership hosts a booze/choco tasting on Friday Nov. 22 from 5:30-7:30 pm featuring their own spirits and Kakawa Chocolate House choco. It'll set you back $49 bones, but dang it if that's not worth it for whiskey and chocolate pairings.
-Word on the street is that Fiona Wong, longtime part-owner of Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen, has sold her interest in the restaurant to spend more time with her family. Bon chance, Fiona—and thanks for shaping one of the best restaurants in town. We also hear Sweetwater recently welcomes chef Carmen Rodriguez to the team, so perhaps another visit is in the cards …?
-And y'know what? That's good on the local front, because we just told you about soooooo many restaurants, and we're not made of minutes!
SFR intern Cade Guerrero loves food and making movies and making movies about food. He stopped by Santafamous Street Eats last week to chat with owner/chef Joseph Baca about all them tacos and burritos.
More Tidbits
-A Georgia man is suing Burger King because he says the fast food chain's Impossible Whopper—a burg ostensibly meat-free in every way—gets contaminated by beef fat while on the grill. We know y'all love to make fun of vegans and vegetarians (you do it all the time in your correspondence), but this is actually kind of a big deal, especially as more fast food joints offer plant-based and meatless options.
-Calling all cat owners: Utah's Go Raw pet food company has issued a recall for its Quest Beef Cat Food product over salmonella risks. We just think you should know that, because cats are the best and don't deserve that shit.
-According to HuffPost, we're all doing Thanksgiving (and probably everything else) all wrong. We get that, we agree with that, we wanna just eat as much as we can, y'know? #MushroomGravy.
-Just so you know, Costco has an Advent calendar that's full of beer instead of garbage choco. "Not too shabby," say America's dads and whatever ponytailed dudes in cargo shorts are currently thinking about starting to brew their own awful beers. Anyway, we hear a lot of them this year are German beers. So…Fröliche Weinhnachten to us all!
-But the boozy Advent calendars don't end there, not by a longshot. Over at popsugar.com, learn of whisky cals and wine cals and hard seltzer cals and more.
-Lastly in the wide world of food this week, those who've always wanted to know about the difference between chicken nuggets, fingers, cutlets and tenders need look no further than this handy guide. Normally we hate shortenings of words for no reason, but we're onboard with everyone using the term "chicken fingies" in case folks were wondering.
Finally
In the print edition of SFR, pizza dowser Zibby Wilder went in search of more pizza outside city limits, finding heartbreak at first, but ultimately scarfing down the good stuff.
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A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence Number of Letters Received
27
*Y’all hate vegans.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week
“I don’t know why I read this every week.”
*Fair enough, but don’t stop.
Actually Helpful Tip
No one helped us with a damn thing.
*Ouch.
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Prix fixin’ to get up on outta here,
The Fork
P.S. There will be no Fork next week because of the holiday. Keep it real, friends!
