Restaurants & Chefs
Gourmet report with John Mariani: Terra at Encantado
By JOHN MARIANI
In which our Western gourmet samples the fine new fare at Encantado in Tesuque, New Mexico, revisits favorite eateries in nearby Santa Fe and gets seaside service in the Nayarit region of Mexico.
ENCANTADO AND ITS SANTA FE NEIGHBORS
By the time you read this I'm sure Encantado in Tesuque, New Mexico, will have developed into one of the West's finest resorts, complete with state-of-the-art spa, elegantly appointed guest casitas, and first-rate service. When I visited, none of that was up and running yet, but what was in place provided a preview of how beautiful and tasteful the resort would be. [Ed. note: Encantado opened last August.]
The Encantado's restaurant is named Terra — set within sight of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it is abloom with wildflowers in springtime and possessed of glorious sunsets year-round. There is a lovely patio, a sleek, sexy bar — the margaritas are perfect — and a dining room done in rough-hewn stone, marble, tiles, and wood, all echoing the landscape and the desert architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West.
The chef at Terra is Charles Dale, who for many years was considered one of Aspen's finest and most innovative cuisiniers, at both Renaissance and Rustique. In Aspen his cuisine was geared to the Colorado mountain region and based in French classicism; here in New Mexico the cooking is more global, while drawing as much as possible from the region's food culture. Thus, you might begin with an heirloom-tomato salad with slices of homemade mozzarella and frisée lettuce — very simple, yet transcendent when made with the absolute perfect ingredients. And then you might follow with translucent ravioli stuffed with greens and graced with a pistachio pesto in a tomato broth.
Courtesy Rosewood Hotels and Resorts
Oliver Ridgeway, chef at the Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe
The food is not fussy; although Dale's delicious duck tamale comes with high-end foie gras, it is bathed in a Cherry Coke sauce. His "slow-cooked suckling pig" spends two days in a brine of Chinese five-spice powder and Spanish paprika, then simmers in lard to make a soft confit, which is shredded, heated with the pork stock, placed on a rice pancake, and dressed with a salad of pickled jicama, chives, chipotle hoisin sauce, and a paper-thin slice of serrano ham — Peking pork Southwestern style.
Encantado is just 10 minutes from downtown Santa Fe, so on the nights you are not dining at Terra, consider some of the new culinary action going on in that historic City Different. There's a new chef — a Brit named Oliver Ridgeway — at the Inn of the Anasazi, where the decor still charms with its timbered adobe and folk art.
Ridgeway, who has cooked his way around the world and was last at the tony Carlyle Hotel in New York, has given the inn a more international style with dishes like his mole-glazed veal medallions with white and green asparagus, Oregon morels, and garlic, as well as his Alaskan halibut with orange zucchini blossoms, maitake mushrooms, fava beans, spicy chorizo sausage, and an emulsion made with a dash of Krug Champagne.
Courtesy Rosewood Hotels and Resorts
Avocado canneloni stuffed with goat cheese in gazpacho at the Inn of the Anasazi
And his take on avocado cannelloni pasta — stuffed with whipped goat's cheese and topped with shaved macadamia nuts and a tangy gazpacho — is a delight. To my mind, a lovely end to a sumptuous meal here, and one of a number of fine desserts, is a saffron crème brûlée with strawberry-papaya tartar and kiwi purée.
I am also very excited by the two-year-old storefront restaurant La Boca, where chef/owner James Campbell Caruso proves that tapas are not a flash in the pan but can make a whole meal. Start off with crunchy toasted country bread topped with white anchovies in olive oil. You can nibble on the flash-fried pimento peppers as you consider which of dozens of Latin American and Spanish wines to order. Then scoop up the albondigas meatballs in tomato sauce, or the cinnamon-scented jumbo shrimp with blood sausage and a passion-fruit crema. Top off the memorable meal with a peaceful night back at your enchanting casita at Encantado.
ENCANTADO — 198 State Road 592, Tesuque, New Mexico. 877-262-4666 [resort], 505-946-5800 [Terra], www.encantadoresort.com
INN OF THE ANASAZI — 113 Washington Ave., Santa Fe, New Mexico. 505-988-3030, www.innoftheanasazi.com
LA BOCA — 72 W. Marcy St., Santa Fe. 505-982-3433
UP THE COAST OF MEXICO THROUGH NAYARIT
Courtesy Hotel des Artistes
Dining room at the Café des Artistes Del Mar in Punta de Mita
As we drove north from Puerto Vallarta into the region of Nayarit, passing small towns, new condo developments, and surfers' paradises, my wife surveyed the territory and remarked, "Why is it that everything in Mexico looks three-quarters built?" The simple reason is because there is so much building going on, not least along seaside Nayarit, where the Four Seasons put a property in Punta de Mita several years ago that has spurred others to do so and made the prospect of enjoying a fine meal more and more of a sure thing.
You can still get regional Mexican food just about anywhere — although most of Puerto Vallarta now seems taken over by Pizza Hut and KFC. But at the linen-draped patio of the Café des Artistes Del Mar in the Hotel des Artistes in Punta de Mita, overlooking the gorgeous Banderas Bay, chef Gerardo Sandoval has translated Mexican food culture in a contemporary menu of dishes like gazpacho moderno, a beautiful cold soup of tomatoes and pimentos with a spoonful of cucumber gelée, a dice of alligator pear, and a lacing of aged vinegar. He also does Mexican ceviches — tiritas de pescado — which include a translucent lime-cooked fish marinated in coconut milk with a bite of chiles and cilantro, served with sweet plantain chips.
At the Hotel Garza Canela in San Blas, we had a delightful evening and ate heartily at El Delfin, where chef Betty Vázquez, who studied with San Sebastián's famous José-Mari Arzak, does a sprightly sopa de mariscos — a seafood broth tingling with two chiles, coconut, and parsley. She stuffs plump chicken breasts with sweet dates and prunes, then drizzles them with orange-and-ancho-chile sauce. For dessert there was a chile-spiked chocolate cake and a flan custard nestled in apples sautéed with five Mexican spices.
Courtesy Hotel des Artistes
Seared grill tuna over seafood chop suey at Café des Artistes Del Mar
For simple fresh seafood fare done with unstinting care, La Laguna Tino's in Nuevo Vallarta is a charmer. Sit under a thatched roof at green-and-yellow-topped wooden tables by the lagoon, and enjoy an array of ceviches, crisp shrimp tacos, and wonderful fish broiled in garlic butter, all accompanied by an ice-cold Negro Modelo beer.
If you do enter into the tourist maelstrom of Puerta Vallarta, one of the best, least pretentious restaurants for fine food is Los Xitomates. It's not on the water but tucked in a block or so, and it's well-known for its margaritas and terrific signature dishes like Chihuahua-style rib-eye with sautéed oyster mushrooms, red snapper sarandeado-style with roasted pineapple, shrimp in Oaxaca pasilla chile adobo, and tender octopus in three chiles.
CAFÉ DES ARTISTES DEL MAR — in the Hotel des Artistes. Avenida el Anclote #5, Punta de Mita. 866-628-2693
EL DELFIN — in the Hotel Garza Canela. Paredes #106 Sur, San Blas. 011-52-323-28-50112
LA LAGUNA TINO'S — Km. 1.2's second entrance to Nueva Vallarta, Nueva Vallarta. 011-52-322-297-0221, www.tinosvallarta.com
LOS XITOMATES — Morelos 601, Puerto Vallarta. 011-52-322-222-9434, www.losxitomates.com
• Click here to read John Mariani's Riesling report
Issue: January 2009
