Lonely, but Local

The gaudiest expressions of Santa Fe style are far from unique to Santa Fe. Much of the Southwest—along the trail of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, in particular—still bears the hallmarks of a fantasy created for tourists largely by hotel magnate and evil marketing genius Fred Harvey.

Even though Santa Fe never sat directly on the railway, La Fonda is a famous so-called Harvey House. A compelling history of Harvey’s influence on the region—as well as that of his favorite architect, Mary Colter—is on view at the New Mexico History Museum.

The great challenge when visiting a Mary Colter building is distinguishing which elements are original to her vision and which were added later, as kitsch superseded class and the idea of adventure in the Southwest leaned more toward fantasy camp than exploration travel.

In the case of La Posada in Winslow, Ariz., a classic railway hotel that sits right along the tracks (where as many as 150 trains a day pass by), it’s hard to tell. After languishing for approximately 40 years, the hotel was renovated and reopened in the late 1990s by Allan Affeldt, along with his wife, painter Tina Mion, and other partners.

The exterior structure, including more recent garden additions, appears to adhere to Colter’s aesthetic, while the interior is so packed with bric-a-brac that it can be hard to see the bones. But for history buffs and architecture dorks, it’s more than worth the trip. It’s also worth stopping at La Posada to eat.

Winslow is a small town that is close to approximately nothing, but Chef John Sharpe’s Turquoise Room—the restaurant and martini bar in residence at La Posada—manages to be not only worldly in its menu and offerings, but to do so with a wealth of fresh, regional ingredients.

Lots of people tell the tale about the chef’s bullheaded dedication to making the trek to the Flagstaff Farmers Market or, in winter, to more-distant Phoenix to hunt for high-quality produce, but it sounds impossible until you taste the truth with your own mouth.

Sharpe’s kitchen is particularly skilled in the preparation of Churro lamb—the traditional Navajo breed—and serves it daily, as something of a claim to fame. When I was there, the menu offered a leg of lamb with locally foraged mushrooms and a “sampler,” which in a sillier, trendier restaurant would be called lamb “three ways.” The sampler included simmered leg over a sweet tamale. It was served with an unusually capable (for outside New Mexico) green chile, made tangy and spry with the addition of tomatillo. The layers—tender and robust lamb between cheese and masa, with piquancy, acid and char resting on top—made for a succession of revelatory bites.

The additional offerings on the sampler—shank in a red chile posole, and roasted bits with arugula and pico de gallo—were nearly as good. A friend’s plate of elk medallions was altogether more predictable, but there was nothing about which to complain in terms of flavor, portion, tenderness or charm. A starting plate of fried squash blossoms was from the land before time. The things were bigger than corn dogs at the fair. Unfortunately, they also kind of tasted like corn dogs at the fair—the batter too thick to allow the flavor or texture of the flower to remain.

The wine list is respectable. But if you want to blur the lines between gaudy Southwestern fantasy camp and the slightly more rugged adventure one used to face after stepping off the train in desolate and bizarre country, I recommend the Turquoise Room’s well-made traditional martini, up of course—the way I like to think Colter would want you to have it.

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