good, not great.. there are a lot of very high end restaurants in santa fe in the price range and quality santacafe falls into. while the staff was nothing short of amazing, the location lovely (we ate this weekend outside), and while the quality of the food is top notch, overall, the meal was lacking. mostly in terms of being interesting to the palette. for example, we ordered their signature calamari. as described, it was crispy, tender and well cooked. yet the dipping sauce (no less than 4 chilli's) was rather flavorless. the tarter sauce at whole foods would have elevated this to a superior level. really good calamari should be tasty with no sauce and in this case, it needed a sauce. and the sauce was not up to snuff.
my mother in law had the salmon. it was prefectly cooked, not dried out albeit a bit on the fishy flavor side. again, it needed something in terms of seasoning to make it a success. i had the signature filet mignon. the quality of the meat and how it was cooked could not be faulted. the flavor profile could, it just wasn't very interesting and filet mignon needs some help in this department. my sister in law and the roasted poblano relleno w/ 3 mushroom quinoa & chipotle cream. now we are getting somewhere in terms of the chipotle cream sauce. superb. unfortunately this dish would work better as an appetizer. the first few bites are great but one tires of the dish quickly. it took four of us to help finish half the portion. probably the best dish overall was the pork chop my wife ordered.
the home run was the mouse dessert. here it seems that a different chef is in better control over the flavors presented. no question the quality of the chocolate was tops. it came with a blood orange and i believe raspberry sauce. i like my chocolate unadulterated. however, it was easy to eat both separately and appreciate each. a knock out desert.
if the main courses just 'knocked it up a notch' in terms of creative taste profiles, thisrestaurantwould be a real winner. the ingredients and how they were prepared can't be criticized yet in the end, expect for desert, nothing memorable which is a shame. even the bread they provided at the start of the meal was underwhelming. again i have to point out that the service was wonderful.