Santa Fe Restaurants We Love

Paloma is Mexican-inspired food, some traditional, some very nontraditional.

Their lamb barbacoa is a good example, using local lamb in place of the usual beef, the meat is cooked according to traditional techniques: slowly, with smoke, wrapping it in banana leaves. Served with a little cucumber-lime Mexican crema makes it a Paloma original. You can also get duck carnitas, with duck legs in place of pork, cured and crisped in duck fat instead of lard, or the vegetarian cauliflower frito tacos with marcona almonds, golden raisins and Spanish olives.

Classical Mexican taco flavors with a spin.

Pasqual’s is small and quaint and popular! The menu offers traditional New Mexican dishes, but really shines with non-traditional dishes like Thai Green curry in a young coconut or the grilled double lamb chop. Get in line, because there is usually a wait.

Food, tea and succulents.

Opuntia is an airy, glass-paneled warehouse space with a greenhouse ambiance. Offering breakfast, lunch and dinner with a drink menu featuring mimosas, a selection of beer and wine, and three sake choices.

Try the tartness and vegetable bowls, the chicken is organic and the pork is sourced from Beeler's Pure Pork in Iowa, and the vegetables are farm-fresh.

Located just off the plaza on Palace Avenue, the Shed occupies a flagstone courtyard and an interior restaurant with nine quiet rooms. This is a family run business offering New Mexico cuisine and featuring killer red chile enchiladas. Worth the wait, especially while enjoying a Shed margarita.

Vinaigrette serves a variety of delicious soups and sides, hearty sandwiches and house-made desserts, along with a variety of dinner specialties and seasonal fare.

Seventy percent of the organic produce served in Vinaigrette during peak season is grown in Nambé, about 20 minutes north of Santa Fe.

A small and colorful space at Palace and Grant avenues, where Alberto Lopez has created a piece of his beloved Oaxaca right here in Santa Fe.

In the kitchen, he’s created his mother’s signature mole negro (along with a host of other from-scratch moles and salsas) to accompany many of the traditional southern Mexican dishes on his expansive lunch and dinner menus. When you are, don’t forget to try the mole coloradito / vanilla bean ice cream from La Lecheria in Santa Fe