RESTAURANTS
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s Santa Fe hurdles headlong into the warm season, restaurants appear ready to meet the traditional influx of visitors and serve stillrebounding crowds of locals. “It’s not just here being busy, but the word around is that everybody’s busy,” says chef Josh Gerwin, the Dr. Field Goods owner/chef who recently bought the Santa Fe Bar & Grill. “There’s this resurgence of people coming out,” he says, noting even people who didn’t join the early waves returning to restaurants after pandemic restrictions have now made their way back to tables. Plus, significant snowfall has “definitely helped everybody in town this year.” Gerwin is hardly alone. Even through the waning winter and prior months, SFR observed mounting crowds at all our favorite local spots, plus new eateries and tasting rooms, new menu items and a reinvigorated dedication from diners. The results are obvious, particularly for a number of establishments highlighted herein. We wanted to showcase the good things that have come to pass, the evolutionary steps taken by local business people and food lovers. These include the return of a much-ballyhooed soup, a growth spurt at the mall, a pair of brothers dedicated to vegetarian excellence and a new era for the hardest kombucha in town. And it doesn’t end there by a long shot. This week, SFR also heralds all things food and drink with the publication of our annual local Restaurant & Bar Directory. This includes a healthy number of local establishments that have burst onto the scene with bigger spaces, wider distribution and new concepts altogether. The directory will continue to evolve online; as for what you hold in your hands? The magic begins on page 13.
Dreams by the bowl Before Soup Star opened in the former location of nowclosed vegan joint Plant Base Café on Santa Fe’s Southside, Anita Salazar and her husband Miqueas Celote had never planned on starting a restaurant. With decades of experience between them at restaurants including Second Street Brewery, Dr. Field Goods, The Ranch House and The Anasazi Restaurant, Bar & Lounge, however, they ultimately jumped at the chance to go into business for themselves. Salazar, the front of house maven, and Celote, the chef with the kitchen skills, have been running their new enterprise for just one month—but Salazar says business is already booming on both the dine-in and takeout fronts.
Abdel Malek and Zakaria Belghiti Alaoui won’t host Tajine’s official grand opening until August, but the brothers’ eight-month-old Moroccan eatery has already amassed a devoted following. Beyond our own well-documented obsession, the restaurant just earned first place in the inaugural Santa Fe Vegan Chef Challenge— as well as a nod for the best overall menu. The award announcement gives special attention to the pair’s mezze platter, a tasting plate of five specialty dishes and dips served with steaming pita. And it’s easy to see why from the first bite of their unbelievably fresh hummus. “We spray [the garbanzo beans] with cold water every six hours until they start sprouting,” Abdel Malek explains. “It’s very good for your digestion, and you get that freshness from the chickpeas.” Much like the multi-day hummus process, the business itself went through an extensive preparatory phase before the ingredients could come together for the soft opening last September. The brothers grew up cooking under the exacting instruction of their mother—whose underwhelmed reaction to the North African and Middle Eastern food then available on a visit to Santa Fe served as partial inspiration for their endeavor. Abdel Malek (pictured below, left) had the initial idea to open a catering business, and Zakaria (below, right) brought to the table years of experience in multinational kitchens from Sedona to Casablanca. “I was like, ‘I’m not gonna let him do this by himself,’” Zakaria jokes, recalling his decision to join Abdel Malek in the undertaking. But the first attempt to find their business a permanent home brought them to New Jersey, not New Mexico. Abdel Malek had gone to college on the East
The big draw? Soup Star’s continuation of the Hungarian mushroom soup first popularized in Santa Fe by Back Street Bistro chef David Jacoby. Salazar worked for Jacoby off and on for years and says she has his blessing to keep the mojo alive. The soup’s provenance is technically Mollie Katzen’s 1974 masterpiece Moosewood Cookbook, but in Jacoby’s hands—and now Celote’s—there’s a reason it has remained a local favorite even well after Back Street closed in 2017. Of course, the mushroom and paprika masterpiece is far from Soup Star’s only offering. According to Salazar, the overall ethos lies in quality and freshness. She and Celote don’t source ingredients from suppliers like Sysco or Shamrock, nor do they plan on developing a massive, multipage menu. Instead, they’ve opted to shop from local grocers and the farmers market. This means the menu will change often based on what Celote thinks will taste best. “I just feel better shopping for our food myself,” Salazar explains, “than I do having cases and cases dumped on me and not knowing how long they were in the warehouse or will have to sit here.” One recent service day, for example, boasted a menu with numerous sandwiches, empanadas and salads, plus five soups from which to choose. At $6 a cup or $10 for a bowl, both generous in size, Soup Star’s pricing seems more than fair—and the mushroom soup will continue to be available daily, unless it sells out. “We were just really tired of working for somebody else, you know?” Salazar tells SFR. “We felt like we had just been building up everybody else’s dream and we somehow forgot to build our own.” (Alex De Vore)
SIENA SOFIA BERGT
B Y S I E N A S O F I A B E R G T, A L E X D E V O R E + JULIE ANN GRIMM e d i t o r @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
Brotherly flavor journey
ALEX DE VORE
Hungry for More
Downsizing? Not this city.
SOUP STAR 1372 Vegas Verdes Drive, (505) 316-5168 11 am-3 pm Mon-Sat
SFREPORTER.COM SFREPORTER.COM • • APRIL APRIL5-11, 5-11,2023 2023
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