ABQ recs just below, but quickly a note on Santa Fe: I live in Santa Fe, and while I think the city has generally earned its reputation as a worthy dining destination, frankly I think it’s fairly overrated at the high end. Most of my favorite spots are several price points down from the restaurants that get written up most often. I also find that the concept of upscale Southwestern food was something of an over-hyped oddity of the 80s and 90s, and the marquee places that hew to this playbook are some of the most tired ripoffs in the state. With all that said, here’s a quick-hit list I put together late last year: Inaugural Santa Fe thread: my current high rotation
As far as Albuquerque, the things it does off-the-charts well are New Mexican food (duh), which is really a regional Mexican style from back when this area was still part of Mexico, Vietnamese due to a large immigrant population, and craft beer, because…well, not sure why, but I think it’s one of the most underrated beer towns in the country. My quick picks for these and a few more:
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New Mex - most the best spots close before dinner. Perennial favorites are Mary & Titos, Barela’s, Padilla’s. Frontier, a fast food institution by UNM, is open nearly 24/7 and does fantastic breakfast burritos on house-made tortillas. All of these are dry; if you want a great margarita to go with this, Santa Fe is probably worth considering, I’d suggest La Choza or the Shed.
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Vietnamese - Banh Mi Coda for very good banh mi and spring rolls, Huong Thao for homestyle.
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Craft beer - I think Marble and La Cumbre make the best beers in the state, each has a tap room. Marble has fun food trucks outside whose food they let you bring into the taproom. Duel up in Santa Fe is fun for Belgian style beers.
And some other excellent, very good value food that’s perhaps not quite on par with the best a big, coastal city might have to offer :
- Budai - real-deal Chinese and Taiwanese including xao long bao, ask for the secret menu.
- Giovanni’s - real NY-style pizza, be sure to get it topped with green chile, NM’s signature ingredient.
- Amore Neapolitan Pizzeria - pretty darn authentic wood-fired Neapolitan pizza, again I recommend with green chile; they’ll walk your pizza over to the Santa Fe Brewing tap room next door.
- The Grove - a coast-style cafe serving very good breakfast and lunch, plus Intelligentsia coffee. Bonus cachet for being a filming location for Breaking Bad.
To add a little counterpoint to Lambowner above, while some of the food around Old Town is perhaps better than it deserves to be, it’s still the main tourist area in the city, so I think you can do better if you cast a wider net. Agree that the views from the top of the tram are stunning but the food isn’t.
