A Review of the Cafe at the Inn of the Five Graces in Santa Fe, New Mexico

It's rare that I am unequivocally enthusiastic about a new restaurant. I'm thrilled to spread the news, dear readers, that the café at The Inn of the Five Graces is a gem. Tucked into an intimate, beautiful setting in the historical Barrio de Analco area, right near the Santa Fe Playhouse, it's the neighborhood restaurant of my dreams. It doesn't matter that 1 live half an hour away; I'll make it back on a regular basis because it's a great place to be nurtured and well-fed.

All the ambience without the price
The first reason to love the café is the beautiful and cozy dining room. Ira and Sylvia Seret, known for their very visible rug-and-architectural displays at Seret & Sons in town, created The Inn as a labor of love over a nine-year x period. The 22 suites, starting at a hair under $300-a-níght, are full of exotic furnishings from their business. Colorful; rugs, wall hangings, carved wood, painted tiles, and art have made the interior a welcoming, intriguing mix of East and West.

Flowers in myriad colors greet guests at the front door, and the patio is landscaped - full of large jar planters and more blossoms. Parking is easy with 19 reserved spaces scattered about the neighborhood. The word is that if you pull up in front and honk, they'll park your car for you.

The good news for Santa Fe locals is that even if you haven't gol the scratch or the inclination to spend a night at The Inn, you can have a meal at the café and sop up the ambience. Glowing, carved hardwood tables fill a sunny room, and a large kiva fireplace heats the room on cold fall days.

We were lucky enough to catch a warm day and sat outside at one of the inlaid-mosaic tables on the patio, but now that the days are consistently colder, that kind of pleasure may have to wait until next spring.

The café has been open for just two months under the management of The Garret Hotel Group. The menu lists three categories: tapas fríos, tapas calientes, and panini and sandwiches.

Chef Pauli Halstead carne to Santa Fe after 40 years in the Bay Area. After owning Pauli's Cafe in the '70s in San Francisco, she moved to Napa and ran Best of Everything, a catering company. She was deeply influenced by the California fresh-food renaissance personified by Alice Waters and our own Deborah Madison. Halstead also will bend over backward - her words - to meet diners' requests or food preferences. (More about the food in a moment.)

The second reason to love the café is because it feels good just to be there - the people are genuinely friendly and happy. It has long been my observation that when an establishment is well-run by reasonable people the staff is pleasant and enthusiastic.

One couldn't ask for a server more suited to the small, intimate environment than Mark Campbell. He's knowledgeable and ready to satisfy every diner's request. Campbell remembered how we liked our water, and he made sure that we had as much bread as we needed. He is Halstead's cheerleader, telling guests she got her training in eighth-grade home economics class. In short, the Halstead-and Campbell team treated us royally.

The third reason: everything we tried was perfectly cooked and beautifully presented. Halstead cares a great deal about the quality of the salad greens, so they are always organic and contain many ingredients from the Santa Fe Farmers Market. She split a classic Caesar salad for us in the kitchen, and each bowl came with a long, slim anchovy along the romaine stem and a Parmesan tuile (crisp) on the side. The tangy salt-lemon-garlic balance was just right. Chicken or shrimp can be added for a small additional charge.

The nicoise salad - pan-seared bluefin tuna, warm fingerling potatoes, Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, olives, and egg - was delicious. The Mediterranean salad, loaded with French feta cheese, kalamata olives, cucumbers, and the Sweet 100s, dazzled with fresh crunch. The salads are excellent, so don't miss them.

One of the starters is a baked head of garlic with goat cheese. Although I was reluctant to order it because I wanted to try dishes with more components, I wound up getting it. Presented in a wide-lipped bowl with a deep basin, the garlic was smooth and delicious and the goat cheese tangy; everything was drowned in golden Greek olive oil.

There was one soup on the menú, sweet potato with lime cream. The contrast was nice: warm yellow sweetness with citrusy cream and crunchy jalapeno garnish.

Mighty sandwiches come hot or cold. Bread is as important to Halstead as salad greens; she gets it flown in from La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles. Of the hot choices, the roast tenderloin of pork sandwich is wonderful - full of moist, rosy red meat. The sandwich also contains prosciutto, pickled picante jalapeños, and Gouda. Other hot sandwiches - one with prosciutto, mozzarella/rcsoí, basil, and tomato on rustic bread (just like you'd get in Italy) and a chicken paillard topped with Parmesan bread crumbs and stuffed in the baguette with Gouda, tapenade, and roasted peppers - sound like equally good combos.

In the tapas calientes section, Halstead gets to show off her best dishes. The moist sautéed chicken paillard on eggplant relish (more of a stew, really) and lemon butter sauce was an original, great pairing.

The jumbo lump-crab cakes may be the best I've ever had. They're moist, pure crab meat and come with a dab of rémoulade on top. Underneath is a wakame (seaweed) salad, which I liked, but Halstead says she is thinking of changing it.

The dish that made us dab up every last drop was the prawns sautéed with tomatoes, basil, garlic, white wine, and French feta. There is a beurre blanc hidden in this one, which takes the savory, creamy-cheesy sauce to the outer limits of flavor. The pleasingly crisp texture of the shrimp is the final taste sensation. Garlic and basil speak their appropriate parts. Did I say it was first-rate? And then there's dessert: two simple made-in-house choices - chocolate pot de creme, like brownie butter topped with cream, and a superlatively smooth vanilla-bean flan. Nothing to lose but your good intentions. Of course, if you like ice cream, there are a couple of more choices. The restaurant also serves good, strong, locally processed Red Rock Roasters coffee.

Beside the great food, my favorite thing about this tapas café is that it is open all afternoon until early evening. I hope that never changes, because it makes an easy choice for an excellent meal before a 7 o'clock movie or theater date. It's also one of few stops in Santa Fe for a late lunch - and at my age, a delicious, intimate meal in the middle of the afternoon is just the sort of satisfying experience that I crave. The Inn of Five Graces is located at 150 E De Vargas St in Santa Fe.