We haven’t been to Santacafe in forever. One of our dear friends decided that we were all going to go together for dinner. Wow! I forgot how fancy this restaurant is.
To start, you receive Santacafe’s delicious corn bread and butter. It was a wonderful beginning.
There is an extensive wine list as well as some interesting cocktails. Being the designated driver, I had a very tasty and fresh iced tea. While my better half had a Gin Martini, an Empress Gin Martini.
The courtyard is spectacular! I was amazed that it was so busy for a Wednesday night. It was stunning. Who knew from the entrance on Washington Avenue that you would be walking into this amazing courtyard. I was especially taken with the wall of coleus. What a great idea.
Santacafe had a delicious golden beet salad(16). It was as beautiful as it was delicious. It was a perfect summer salad. There were some citrus that really enhanced this salad.
Since I had already checked the menu online, I knew that I was having the mushroom tortellini(28).
It just wasn’t a mushroom tortellini. This plate had a mushroom dashi with honey glazed enoki and Parmesan cheese. Ok, I had no idea what the above sentence meant until I Googled it. Mushroom dashi is a sauce that is both vegan and vegetarian made from dried kelp. No wonder, I could taste salt. The enoki is a Japanese mushroom that is a beautiful string-like variety. You can see the brown strings above, they are the enoki mushrooms.
The server had a small pitcher and gracefully poured the sauce over my tortellini. Yes, it certainly was fancy restaurant time. The slices of Parmesan really enhanced the flavor of the mushroom tortellini. It was a solid dish.
Our friend had the pan seared salmon(36) with some roasted fennel, asparagus, potato and sauce gribiche. Sauce gribiche is a chilled egg sauce. While our other friend had the scrumptious grilled Filet Mignon(46)with a mushroom puree, tempura asparagus, a potato Mille Feuille, and veal jus. Wow! what a feast.
I learned a great deal about food just by coming to this restaurant. Needless to say, I had no idea about most of the terms I Googled above.
This is the Santa Cafe Dinner Menu. Dinner is served from 5 to close. Santa Cafe also serves lunch from 11:30-2:30. Santa Cafe’s phone number is 505.984.1788. It is located at 231 Washington Ave.
I thought it was a great idea to include a 4 dollar up-charge for the kitchen. It was also ideal that you could opt out.
There is a parking lot behind Santacafe. All the times we had been there, we have parked on the street near the Santa Fe Public Library. Leave it to a Santa Fe native to school us on this important detail.
The bar, artwork, reservations, the rear entrance, and the well. SantaCafe was originally a house.
The service was some of the best in the city. Everyone was very polite and conscientious. The table team worked in concert to make our meal very enjoyable. The artwork just added to the ambiance.
