We won’t bury the lede: SFR’s Best of Santa Fe 2023 issue hit the streets yesterday. This year’s a big one with more than 170 categories voted on by you, the reader. Read it right here, and start composing your missives about how much you love those places too or how you disagree and such. (It’s important to note that literally everything that won did so because it received the most votes from readers and SFR staff merely counted those votes.)
Anywayyyyyyyyyy...
We have feelings of our own about what’s best around here, which might surprise you, but we wanted to share some of that jazz with you just in case you needed more rankings of things. We get to do this because we’re powerful and, for some reason, a bunch of nerds keep reading this newsletter. So please check out The Fork’s Personal Best of Santa Fe (for food, anyway, and in no particular order—and please note that these are in no way affiliated with the actual winners of this year’s Best of Santa Fe issue) below:
Best Pancakes We’ve Ever Freaking Eaten Ever, And We’ve Eaten a Lot of Pancakes: Café Fina
If you travel out of town on Old Las Vegas Highway toward Pecos (or I-25 if you’re one of THOSE), you’ll eventually hit Café Fina, that glowing bastion of brunchy goodness built up by chef Murphy O’Brien. Some folks might be sad to learn that the restaurant will discontinue its to-go-only dinner service starting July 29, but that’s OK because we’re firmly on team pancake when it comes to this place. In fact, we feel comfortable saying they’re the best pancakes we’ve ever had, though that might be about the side of REAL maple syrup or the subtly sweet whipped cream. O’Brien is also behind the soon-to-reopen Legal Tender restaurant in Lamy.
Best New Couch But Also There’s Coffee There: Ohori’s
We’ve probably said this a lot, but it bears repeating—for our money, no one’s coffee beats Ohori’s, and we mean that both in terms of flavor and price. For two bucks and change you can have a large deliciously roasted cup and it gives us the no-downside energy we need to make it through another freaking newsletter. Additionally, if you visit the company original location on Pen Road and St. Francis Drive, you’ll find a new hangout and retail spot just across from the main service zone. Dubbed Ohori’s Home, it not only has a comfy-ass couch, it is good for gifts and mugs and such. Also? Ohori’s turns 40 next year if our calculations are correct, and that’s pretty glorious. We also like the other one in the Luna Center adjacent to food hall CHOMP.
Best Mocktails Because We’re a Teetotaling Dorkus Most of the Time: Palace Prime Steakhouse
We don’t often drink anymore, but sometimes we want something a little more than water. Enter Palace Prime, which has a number of booze-free drinks that require a little more effort than a nearby carafe. To be fair, we’ve really only sampled the lemonade concoction with a dehydrated candied lemon slice on the rim, but there are others about which we’ll need to learn soon. Our coworkers ate there just about a year ago and still talk about it all the time.
Best Tortillas That Our Friend Ryan’s Grandma Didn’t Make: Alicia’s Tortilleria
Well, duh. This legendary Midtown spot just plain has the best tortillas, and we’re not sure what we’re supposed to do about that other than eat as many as we can. The chips and guac are also quite excellent, and you can pick up a burrito or something while you’re there getting your tortillas for home.
Best Surprisingly Good Thing We Ate in a Movie Theater: Chicken Flautas @Violet Crown Cinema
Theaters having full-on food and beer menus is a relatively new thing in the world, and while we generally salute the places that do these things, we’re not quite sure we’re in a golden age of cinema food just yet. Still, Violet Crown Cinema in Santa Fe has a few surprisingly decent options, and lately we’ve been all about the chicken flautas. They’re simple: chicken in a fried and rolled tortilla. But with the tasty red chile Violet Crown offers, they’re a solid snack for when you catch a movie.
Best Take Two of a Burger Our Editor Grew Up With: Jambo Bobcat Bite
Whenever Jambo founder and chef Ahmed Obo does anything, everyone freaks the eff out and crowns it the best thing they’ve ever had. We’re a little more skeptical than all that, but we love to talk shit; and what’s the first rule of talking shit? Knowing the eff what you’re talking about. Por ejemplo, the burger at Jambo Bobcat Bite. Obo installed his newest eatery in the former Bobcat Bite space—the one that had been occupied by the Day family, which also ran Lucky Goat and Bouche and a couple other places that no longer exist, and the Eckre family before them. It’s the Eckres who made the place legendary, but they suffered through moves and closures all their own a number of times. Their biz became Santa Fe Bite, which still exists, albeit under new-ish ownership, and in the interest of getting this show on the road, we’ll say that Obo approached the Eckres before he bought the old/original Bobcat Bite and reportedly received their blessing. Now then, our editor tells us he grew up eating that Bobcat burger, and that Obo’s tastes more like the one of his youth than even Santa Fe Bite does. Knowing that, we visited, too, and guess what? The burger slaps, from its generous portions and not-overpowering green chile to the same old bun people started to expect from that place. Well done!
Best Brekkie B For Us In This Moment: Posa’s Tamale Factory & Restaurant (El Merendero)
We don’t want to start a flame war here, but have y’all had the El Merendero brekkie b with red chile? It’s a real winner, buds, from the melty cheese and plenty-of-eggs element to the size of the dang thing. We won’t wax philosophical or anything, we just think it’s so so tasty. That said, it was a pretty hard final decision, and we also considered Café Castro, Ramblin’ Café, El Chile Toreado, Sunrise Family Diner and Fusion Tacos (whose tacos are so dang good, obviously). But when the chips are down and we envisioned the last brekkie b we’ll ever eat on this Earth, Posa’s eked out the victory. We will not be linking to all those places.
We’ve never once had a bad meal or bad service at Zacatlan. Heck, we’ve never even had an ordinary or boring meal there. Fact is, chef/owner Eduardo Rodriguez seems like a genius to us, from the hallowed halls of affordable brunch to the house made tortilla chips and the absolutely bonkers desserts. Dinner, though, is the winner in our book. Our editor agrees and basically fawned all over Rodriquez’s spot earlier this year. How best to describe Zacatlan? Well, it’s like a fusion of Southwestern fine dining hits and Mexican culinary brilliance. Try the cochinita pibil for dinner or the huevos rancheros for brunch. Do the whole freaking menu, man!
Best Restaurant Facelift: Café Catron
We loved Bagelmania and the subsequent New York Deli over there on Catron Street, but when the Vanderhider family first took over earlier in the year and rebranded as Café Catron, we were not amused. We’re happy to say we were wrong now, though, and just kind of mistaken. Everything has much improved at the brekkie/brunchy/lunchy spot, and though some items from the previous iteration’s menu survived (eggs Benedict, for example, and the bagels for which the restaurant has always been known), new specials and dishes round things out nicely in the sort of contempo-cazsh realm. Even better? The Vanderhider family kept most of if not all of the staff on board. Yay!
We love the little Midtown bread bakery run by couple Mayme Berman and Jacob Brenner, even more so since they’ve started offering up a rotating menu of grab-n-go sandwiches for both vegetarians and carnivores. You’ll find some pastries, too, and a few grocery items, but you should mainly try the sammies before you do anything else.
Just across from Bread Shop, you’ll find Ozu, a new Japanese lunch spot and mini-grocer serving up items that you don’t usually see on Japanese menus in our landlocked state. We’ve had a few items here, from a crab roll to a plum rice ball kind of thing, and we just want to see what owners Jeff Ozawa and Jaimie Lewis can do if everyone steps up and visits for a lot of years in a row.
We grant you that we’ve thus far only enjoyed a tasting menu thing at Alkeme, the new eatery from the much-lauded chef Hue-Chan Karels, but now that we know more about the work from up-and-comer and CDC Erica Tai, we’re all about her skillz. We honestly can’t wait to see what she does in the food world and we hope it continues to be here in Santa Fe.
It was tough to pin down a dessert category (and we almost gave it to Café Fina for the strawberry rhubarb pie), but these items at Tesuque Village Market are so good, so generous in portion, so deliciously layered and high-quality that there was no contest in the end. We straight up will drive out there just for the key lime pie and tres leches after we have a meal elsewhere, and that’s not something we generally do. In fact, we’re weirded out by people who have the time and wherewithal to go someplace for food and a different place for different food in quick succession. Anyway, you want this stuff, believe us.
We could keep going, too, but we’re pretty sure that even if you did read this far you were getting fatigued by the sheer number of words. To be continued, perhaps? Or maybe we’ll just forget about it altogether. We can do whatever we want.
Yeah, Joe Esposito!
Snack Corner
We’re just gonna remind you that hummus exists and is so good. We ate so much hummus last night that we’re kind of over hummus for the moment. But you should eat some. Get it at literally any store, probably. And save your “Even a clothes store, The Fork?!?!” joke emails for someone who gives a crap!!!
Also
-Ohhhhhhhhhh, dang! It’s big congrats time for local business Food Tour New Mexico for recently being named the sixth best food tour in the country by USA Today’s 10 Best Reader’s Poll. “These tours in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque focus on the history and diversity of one cuisine: New Mexican,” reads the little writeup. If you didn’t know, founder Nick Peña is alllllllright and offers all kinds of experiences through the company website.
-Albuquerque-based news outlet KRQE points out in a recent piece that people on Yelp-dot-com can’t get enough of Santa Fe’s Pantry Restaurant. We’re on that list, too, and will probably go snag an evening brekkie b with carne adovada as soon as we finish working for the day.
-Jesushi sushi truck proprietor Jesus Mendoza also has a tacqueria called Tacqueria Jesushi?! And we weren’t informed?! DO Y’ALL HATE US?! GOD! Anyway, if this guy is half as good at tacos as he is at sushi, they’re be twice as good as any of us deserves. What? anyway, you’ll reportedly find the tacqueria near the sushi in the parking lot of that carwash on Cerrillos Road behind Cuco’s Kitchen.
-The city’s Historic Districts Review Board has reportedly approved a request to renovate the former El Mesón restaurant space at 213 Washington St. in downtown Santa Fe. What’s going in there, you might ask? Market Steer Steakhouse, baby. Owners Kathleen Crook and Kristina Goode’s meat mecca has been steakin’ it up within the Hotel St. Francis for just about the past five-ish years, and from the renderings we’ve seen of the new space, it’ll be a huge square footage boost as well as a super-pretty place to eat. We don’t have a specific timeline just yet, but stay tuned to The Fork (or Le Fork for our French readers) for more details as we get them (but, like, we’re not saying it’s gonna be immediate, just, we’ll tell you when we know).
-Nuckolls Brewing is now officially open in the Railyard. Brought to you by the people behind Violet Crown, we’ve yet to visit in earnest, but it’s on our list. Have y’all been? What did you think? It kind of thwarts our plan to open Knuckles Brewing with Sonic the Hedgehog marketing, but so is life.
-Speaking of openings, sports/music/food place Boxcar went and soft-opened its new location at 113 Water St. in downtown Santa Fe. That’s where the ol’ Blue Corn Brewery once lived. We’ve been seeing some pretty amazing photos of the renovations that went down in there, and we hear the service is already off to a great start. Does parking downtown suck so bad you just want to weep into your sandwich? Yes! But you’ll work it out.
-Speaking of even more openings, that Dutch Bros. coffee chain is now in Santa Fe on the site of the former strip club, and we’re pretty much like, “Dude, we have so much good coffee here from locals, why are we doing this soulless chain coffee?” We hear the opening offered a buy-one-get-one-free thing, and that the line was super long because of that. Gross. And before you get into an “it’s cheaper,” thing, it’s really not. And anyway, do you know the saying “penny wise, pound foolish?” Pound Foolish would be an OK rap name, we guess, but now that we’ve thought about it, we actually hate it as a rap name. See y’all at a local shop—if you knew who we are, anyway. Which you don’t.
Y’all knew it was coming, right?
More Tidbits
-Follow this link to an interesting video piece from Architectural Digest that delves into why American diners have a certain kind of look to them. Of course we mean *those* kinds of diners, so don’t get cute—get learned.
-Apparently singer Lana Del Rey is currently working in an Alabama Waffle House, at least that’s according to Food and Wine-dot-com. Right on, that’s cool, actually. We love Waffle House and we salute her working there. People think all musicians are super-rich, but they’re often not. Or maybe she just likes waffles, who cares? Let people live, GOD!
-Lastly in not-just-local food news (because we realize our intro was soooooo long), please note in terror that there are now mustard-flavored Skittles. Y’know, we could’ve been anything as a society. We could’ve swam in the sea and eaten goat meat on the beach until our bellies grew fat and the wine flowed freely. We could have sang songs of love and unity as we made love to countless partners, unafraid of disease because our utopia didn’t have room for misery. We could have grown our own food and built simple structures in which to live; taken care of those who needed it; put people first and created a bounty to share with anyone and everyone. Instead we’re a world of people feeling ways about app name changes, of confusing banking systems, windowless offices, billionaires who hoard wealth like dragons and, for some reason, fucking mustard-flavored Skittles. Wack.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
This week in the print edition of SFR, find the Best of Santa Fe 2023, which includes a MASSIVE food and drink section.
Number of Letters Received
28
*One less than last week?! What did we ever do to make you hate us?! Oh, all that stuff? Word, that tracks.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“Can I take you to dinner and show you the kind of food I like?”
* We don’t date. Le Forkette exists.
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
“Potentially unpopular opinion but Chocolate Maven’s chocolate cake (the one you always see at birthday parties here, a dark, prone-to-sweat frosting, a frustratingly dry interior) pales in comparison to the choc cake at Market Street, which is moist to the point of being succulent and which has a much more confident, rich but uncannily light sort of frosting. I scrape off the frosting and put it on ice cream when I want an upgrade from Hersheys.”
*Reader Iris M. stirring the pot, but totally not being wrong. Some folks don’t love ganache, and that’s OK. Some folks like a moist cake, and that’s OK. WE LIKE A CAKE LIKE THAT, AND THAT IS OK!
Not the best but pretty OK,
The Fork
PS: This is not food-related, but we wanted to note we’re quite sad to hear about the death of singer Sinead O’Connor. She was a stalwart musical presence who embodied punk rock in a way that even the most well-known progenitors of the genre couldn’t grasp, and we like to think she birthed an entire generation of people who connected with those tenets: Community, looking out for the little guy, music, being badass, sticking it to the freaking man and being kind. O’Connor was only 56.
We’re going to include a vid of O’Connor’s infamous 1992 SNL performance below—the one where she rips up the photo of the old pope to protest the many instances of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy from the Catholic church—because it’s actually something we think about often. She did what was right and, as far as we’re concerned, has since been more than vindicated. It’s not always easy following your own moral compass, but it’s something to which we aspire each and every day, in no small part because of that incredibly brave action on live television. Rest in power, Sinead O’Connor.
