Restaurant Guide season at the Santa Fe Reporter is the most wonderful time of the year, and the most dreaded. Yes, for a couple of weeks out of our regular schedules, we get to gallivant across town and eat like regular Rockefellers. The downside is the toll it takes when you do it three times a day, all the while munching on a prop or two here and there for good measure. It's a first-world problem indeed, one that's balanced by this year's theme: Play with your food.
No, we're not suggesting you start a spaghetti fight at Andiamo, but rather that you give way to your more daring side and order something off the menu you normally wouldn't.
The tag line also applies to this issue's contents. This is the biggest and the most varied guide ever. El Parasol rubbing shoulders with Geronimo? The Compound highlighted in the same publication as Red Enchilada? You bet your kale-munching, gluten-intolerant, sodium-neutral ass.
Our intrepid contributors' reviews are again aided by the scrumptious photography of Joy Godfrey, who this year dares you to resist licking portions of this magazine.
Inside these [hopefully dry] pages, you'll also find our Top 10, 25 Best and the big daddy of them all our Restaurant of the Year, all wrapped in a smoked pork belly, housemade sriracha-drizzled bow.
Ever wonder what other food concept inhabited the walls of some of your favorite haunts? Break out your magnifying glass and check out what used to be there. (Honnel's Late Nite Burger, can you hear me?) How's about a showcase of some of the best food trucks in town? Keep on truckin' and let the stomach growling begin. A regular SFR feature asks chefs where they eat when they hang up their aprons. Oh, and what would all these awesome dishes be without a drink (or six?). Lift your glass for our revamped Happy Hour guide.
So there you have it. Living in a state that has both an official question that's related to food and an official cookie, and a city where farm-to-table is not a trend, it's a way of life, it's clear that food culture here runs deep. So take a walk on the adventurous side, and together, celebrate the very essence of dining out—its communal raison d'être.
I even saved you a spot at the head of the table. Hold on, are you gonna eat that?
Contributors:
Alex De Vore
Rob DeWalt
Julie Ann Grimm
Elizabeth Miller
Thomas Ragan
COVER IMAGE:
Enrique Limón
Anson Stevens-Bollen
MODEL: Anson's Hands
LEAD PHOTOGRAPHY:
Joy Godfrey
Santa Fe Reporter