Hooked

Walking into downtown café Henry & the Fish (217 W San Francisco St., 995-1191), an R. David Marks photo of a zebra stares back at me, its black and white stripes reminiscent of cream freshly poured into coffee. I walk past the case of beautiful cookies encased like statues on exhibit ($2.75 each), pass a fridge of La Colombe canned coffees and approach the counter where owner Kelly Garcia greets my party kindly as we peruse the menu.

Kelly and her husband Joe Garcia are the original owners of the once-iconic Atomic Grill, and after a stint in Arizona, they returned to Santa Fe roughly a decade ago; their new spot is nearing two years open.

“Henry is our pet rabbit,” Kelly explains of the moniker, “and we have a fish with no name.”

Despite walking by this place almost daily, having sampled the coffee twice and only once navigated an unhelpful internet search for coffee shops, I didn’t know Henry & the Fish offered a full breakfast and lunch menu until recently (though why I never looked above the counter at the ample food offerings remains a mystery). That menu boasts breakfast all day plus sandwiches, salads and ramen—even smoothies ($7.50-$8.50) and, according to Joe, the promise of fresh-squeezed juice and gelato later this summer.

“[We were looking for] a certain type [of restaurant] that didn’t exist in Santa Fe,” Joe tells SFR. “Healthy, fast, casual with affordable prices and focusing on fresh ingredients—something approachable and non-intimidating.”

In Santa Fe, it doesn’t get any less intimidating than the humble breakfast burrito ($7), which I order with bacon for an extra $2 and an iced coffee on the side. My companions respectively order the breakfast sandwich with Sriracha mayo and the el pastor rice bowl as an employee pours my iced coffee from a Yeti cooler. As I glance about, the indoor seating appears full, as do outdoor tables that sprang up when the city made special provisions for sidewalk service during the pandemic. Ultimately, we make our way to the breezeway shared by Henry & the Fish and the Lensic Performing Arts Center. It’s cool and comfortable while we wait.

In the meantime, Joe pops by the table. We hadn’t announced that we’d arrived in a professional capacity, but full disclosure, since SFR Culture Editor Alex De Vore and contributing writer Riley Gardner have both previously worked for the Garcias, we stand out like some kind of three-headed sore thumb. As the three make small talk, I sip my serviceable La Colombe ($3.50) and enjoy its floral notes and lack of bitterness; when the food comes, Joe leaves us to it.

I promptly cut my burrito in half before diving into a first-blush taste of spicy, textured mush. This comes from the hashed potatoes and red chile fused together with melted cheese. With a tortilla from the Albuquerque Tortilla Company, the burrito is thin and chewy with chopped green chile and eggs that look and taste like they were cracked and scrambled mere moments before. Light grill marks indicate some kind of press was probably used by the kitchen, but this burrito is not as crispy as I usually like. To each their own, of course, but it could have used an extra moment or two in a press or on a grill. Still, it’s a potpourri of flavors melding and melting into each other and reaching the bottom tortilla folds.

My companion, whose breakfast sandwich ($7.75) is comprised of just three fresh ingredients on a brioche bun, chimes in: “This sandwich is honestly really good,” he says. “It’s simple, but delicious.” This is a sign of high-quality ingredients, but I can’t hear him—angels are singing spicy songs to my tastebuds.

My other companion, meanwhile, is kind enough to let me sample his el pastor taco bowl ($10.75). Inside, the brown rice teeters on al dente, its chewiness accompanied pleasantly by the crunch of red cabbage and sweet mango. The sweet acidity of pineapple adds yet more flavor and texture elements, and the juices from the grilled chicken season the rice beautifully.

This is none too shabby for an eatery that was forced down to a skeleton crew during the pandemic. The Garcias have staffed back up in recent months, with Joe saying they “nurture [their] staff so they enjoy coming to work, as well as enjoy the electricity of the job.”

In the end, Henry & the Fish understands that all-important rule of making and sharing food with others—it need not be a periodic table’s worth of hard-to-pronounce ingredients, or even a wildly innovative or bizarre take on the classics. This is recognizable coffee and food items done quickly and well. This is a reason to get up early for breakfast, even if they do serve it all day long.