The 12 Best Restaurants in Santa Fe
Santa Fe’s world-renowned galleries and art markets, soothing views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and one-of-a-kind museums may come to mind first when thinking of this Southwestern city—but the great outdoors and incredible art are far from all the city has to offer. New Mexico’s capital is also home to a vibrant culinary scene, and not just because of its signature red and green chiles that smother everything from enchiladas, burritos, and burgers to more inventive, modern fare. Down the city's over four-hundred-year-old streets you’ll find decadent food trucks, sophisticated bistros, eclectic international cuisine, and eateries to match the town’s colorful art scene. These are the best restaurants in Santa Fe to map your next visit around.
Read our full Santa Fe travel guide here.
Every restaurant on this list has been selected independently by Condé Nast Traveler editors and reviewed by a local contributor who has visited that restaurant. Our editors consider both high-end and affordable eateries, and weigh stand-out dishes, location, and service—as well as inclusivity and sustainability credentials. We update this list as new restaurants open and existing ones evolve.
Kate Russell/GeronimorestaurantGeronimo
$$$Ensconced on a road best-known for its art galleries, Geronimo brings creative flair to the fine dining experience. Chef Sllin Cruz traces the seasons with a changing menu featuring the likes of Wagyu beef carpaccio, pan-seared foie gras, and tellicherry rubbed elk tenderloin. The restaurant is set in an adobe home that feels far from its humble 1756 beginnings with whitewashed walls, antler chandeliers, and studded leather dining chairs. However, the best seat in the house is on the low-slung portal on summer evenings during art walks when gallery gazers amble by.
Douglas Merriam/The ShedrestaurantThe Shed
$This colorful downtown New Mexican joint wins fans with spicy red and green (sauce). Locals will elbow through visitors for a chance to order blue corn enchiladas smothered in red chile with a cup of posole (hominy stew) on the side. The enchiladas pair perfectly with the smooth Código Coin margarita, an entry on the forty–strong Santa Fe Margarita Trail that winds through the town’s restaurants, or the ZoZoRita, which celebrates the city’s annual Zozobra celebration with a tamarindo elixir and a chile salt rim. The eatery’s magenta and turquoise walls belie the history behind them: The restaurant sprawls through nine rooms in an adobe hacienda with roots to 1692 just off the Santa Fe Plaza. If the jammed restaurant is booked—particularly common in the summer—head to sister restaurant La Choza in the Santa Fe Railyard.
SazónrestaurantSazón
$$In a city dripping with New Mexican cuisine, Sazón is a lighthouse for those seeking Mexican flavors. Fresh off his 2022 win for Best Chef Southwest, chef Fernando Olea draws inspiration from regions across his home country, and both traditional and contemporary influences. The cowboy hat–wearing chef offers his own interpretation of Chiles en Nogada, a celebration of Mexico in both color and flavor, with ground lamb, pork, and nuts, in a tower of chile poblano, dried fruits, and creamy walnut sauce. His signature soup, Sopa de Amor, mingles sweet, savory, and spicy tastes with a blue lump crab enrobed in poblano cream and topped with amaretto foam sprinkled with cocoa powder and cinnamon. Find them in an intimate adobe a couple blocks off the Santa Fe Plaza.
restaurantTia Sophia's
$$If it feels like Tia Sophia’s dishes are something an abuela (grandmother) would make, that’s no mistake. The restaurant is named after owner-operator Nick Maryol’s grandmother, though the recipes for its sizzling red and green-chile sauce come from a pair of Hispanic grandmothers outside the founders’ Greek family. The menu proclaims the eatery isn’t responsible for too hot chile—and makes sure it lives up to the warning with sauces that warm bellies for hours after the meal ends. The just-off-the-Plaza diner has been slathering its signature sauce on all manner of burritos, enchiladas, chile rellenos, and stuffed sopapillas since 1975. It’s a favorite among everyone from local legislators to visiting movie stars. Although Tia Sophia’s is careful not to claim it invented the breakfast burrito (folks have been wrapping fillings in a tortilla for on-the-go meals for ages), it’s one of the first in this chile-crazed town to put it on the menu. So, ordering a hand-held version is a must.
Richard T. White/Jambo CaférestaurantJambo Café
$$Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives aficionados will be familiar with this twice featured eatery and Kenyan-born chef Ahmed Obo. Obo cooked Santa Fe favorites, like green chile cheeseburgers, in other kitchens for a decade before opening his own restaurant in an unassuming strip mall space enlivened with colorful walls and art from its in-house bazaar. Jambo Café is an outpost for African-Caribbean flavors. Obo has a much-appreciated heavy hand with spices in dishes like jerk chicken wings, lamb curry, coconut pili pili shrimp, and ever-popular Caribbean goat stew—a favorite of TV Network host Guy Fieri when he visited. Obo, with his spice rack in tow, also resurrected a famous burger joint across town now known as Jambo Bobcat Bite.
Courtesy The Compound RestaurantrestaurantThe Compound
$$$Decked out with sanded white walls and 1960s folk art-inspired details care of interior and textile designer Alexander Girard, The Compound’s ambiance sets the stage for its contemporary American menu with global influences. After more than two decades in the kitchen, chef-owner and James Beard Award–winner for Best Chef Southwest Mark Kiffin passed the whisk to Michelin-trained Weston Ludeke in 2022. As executive chef, Ludeke shares Kiffin’s devotion to seasonal ingredients, from heirloom tomatoes to locally raised lamb, and upscale takes on homey dishes like the popular chicken schnitzel and osso buco. The Compound is a local favorite for luxurious lunches.
Kakawa Chocolate HouserestaurantKakawa Chocolate House
$$Willy Wonka has nothing on husband-and-wife team and Kakawa owners Bonnie and Tony Bennett. The duo packs their City Different display cases with goat cheese truffles and caramels infused with locally grown lavender. But this shop also celebrates the region’s long love affair with chocolate and chile—a pairing dating to the Aztec and Mayan civilizations in the Americas—with red-chile caramels and chile solid dark chocolates. It also bypasses traditional milk-based hot chocolates for potent chocolate elixirs, the favored drink of the pre-Columbian cultures who first championed culinary cacao. Diners sip these unsweetened drinks made with water, chocolate, herbs, nuts, spices, and chile in blue-and-white Mexican Talavera espresso cups in a quaint adobe just off Canyon Road and two other City Different locations.
Douglas Merriam/La BocarestaurantLa Boca
$$$Santa Fe owes a significant portion of its modern identity to Spanish influences, from architecture to cuisine. Nowhere is this cookery celebrated more keenly than the intimate La Boca, where Chef James Campbell Caruso delivers small plates that transport diners to the streets of Cadiz. Campbell Caruso, who has received multiple James Beard nominations, also imports Spanish sherries and wines to pair with small plates such as turmeric-yogurt grilled chicken thigh and chicharrones de Andaluz laced with harissa. If you’re not in a hurry, paellas in classic and vegetable versions offer a hearty counter point to the tapas menu. An accompanying bodega sells wine, meats, and other hard-to-find ingredients from the Iberian Peninsula.
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El Chile Toreado
$The James Beard Foundation broke the mold when it nominated the father-and-daughter team of Luis and Berenice Medina as Best Chef Southwest semi-finalists in 2023. The duo, hailing from Chihuahua, Mexico, operate one of the city’s favorite food trucks where Luis plies his decades of experience as a hot dog cart operator and Berenice leverages her Le Cordon Bleu degree. The dishes, served on paper plates, pack in flavor rather than pomp. For breakfast, larger than life Luis Mix breakfast burritos pack in chorizo, bacon, and polish sausage with eggs, potatoes, green chile, and cheese. Come lunch, the al pastor (marinated pork in adobo with pineapple) and adobada (marinated pork in chile adobo sauce) tacos are rich and savory, and the house-made green chile sauce with jalapeños and cilantro complements any order.
Douglas Merriam/Dolina Bakery & CaferestaurantDolina Bakery & Cafe
$$Annamaria Brezna O’Brien serves New Mexican staples alongside Eastern European dishes at this buzzy brunch spot. Within walking distance of the Santa Fe Plaza but out of the fray, Dolina ladles hearty flavors from Brezna O’Brien’s native Slovkia, such as the head-turning morning soup (with rich lamb bone broth and wild rice) and the Orechovník French toast, which begins with a base of house made walnut and cinnamon bread and is topped with warm fruit. Minimalist décor makes the interior feel like a country house—a fitting feel for a restaurant with a dedicated farm for its produce. Diners searching for American dishes can find satisfying plates here, too, including chicken and waffles topped with a chef’s kiss of green apple and fennel slaw.
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Horno Restaurant
$$Before the James Beard Foundation gave him a hat tip as a Best Chef Southwest semi-finalist in 2023, chef and co-owner David Sellers won Santa Feans over with his weekly fried chicken dinners. Sellers opened Horno in 2021 spending a decade behind the wheel of the non-profit Street Food Institute, which he founded to teach budding culinary entrepreneurs the food truck biz. These street influences—along with Sellers’ decades at fine-dining restaurants—guide Horno where the food is sophisticated but without pretense. A block north of the Santa Fe Plaza, the intimate bistro (reservations are a must) overflows onto the sidewalk where diners tuck into small plates of miso roasted seasonal vegetables or Korean barbecue pork belly, and main dishes like squid ink capellini. Keep dessert simple with the seasonal pop tart; previous flavors have included a obsession-worthy apple with cardamom frosting, caramel sauce, and vanilla semi freddo.
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Paloma
$$Set in Santa Fe’s artsy Railyard district, Paloma orchestrates imaginative takes on Mexican cuisine. Chef Nathan Mayes sources seasonal ingredients for the made-from-scratch menu—down to the tortillas, salsas, and beans—where family-style dishes such as beet and melon aguachile encourage sharing. Diners lean into the plant-forward smokey sopecitos with griddled masa cakes and hearty chipotle-roasted mushrooms, while others can’t miss the short rib barbacoa topped with zingy pickled nopales. The dishes pair with the restaurant’s menu of 50-some sipping mezcals that emphasize small-batch makers and women-owned brands. Natural wine enthusiasts can dip into the restaurant’s attached coral-hued vino bar.
