CAFE PASQUAL’S

It is no overstatement to say that since its beginnings in 1979, Cafe Pasqual’s, a block off the Plaza, has evolved into a bona fide culinary and cultural tour de force in Santa Fe’s dining and art scene. The mission is simple, says Katharine Kagel, the cafe-restaurant’s founder and chef. “Make the best possible food with the best possible ingredients, but without attitude. We want to make it joyful and nourishing, and make people feel good,” she says.

Kagel’s commitment to using as many organically sourced ingredients as possible reflects her uncompromising attitude toward health. She estimates that 98% of her menu’s offerings, like the Durango omelet with red or green

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chiles, tostada with seared Arctic char, and asadero cheese chile relleno, are made of organic ingredients. “Some people say, ‘I can’t afford organic food,’ and I say, ‘You can’t afford not to. It’s your health; you’re going to taste the difference and feel better.’” Also nourishing to the senses are the murals by Leovigildo Martinez Torres that line the cafe’s walls. Kagel met the artist 30 years ago in Oaxaca, Mexico, and was inspired to ask him to paint them and expand the restaurant into a gallery. “We always eat with our eyes first,” says Kagel, who is a mixed-media artist working in monoprint, collotype, lithography, ceramics, painting, and drawing. Also featured in the restaurant- gallery is mica-rich local clay cookware made by Felipe Ortega, who is a medicine man with Jicarilla Apache and Hispanic heritage. His clay cook pots can rest directly on top of flame and infuse food with a subtle sweetness you don’t get with metal cookware. Kagel puts them in the Moroccan oven that Ortega built in her backyard. Sharing these cooking methods through the art of pottery is integral to the restaurant’s mission.

In the end, it all comes down to fostering an understanding about where food comes from. “The arc of people understanding their food is fantastic and I’m thrilled that people are demanding the best,” says Kagel. R