Restaurant Review: The Old House (Santa Fe)

This was to be the piece de resistance for the vacation — the big “final night, special night” dinner.  It was — but the restaurant didn’t add as much to it as it ought to have.  Not bad, by any means — just a little disappointing.

Overall
Food		Service
Ambience		Prices

Food:  We had cocktails to begin with.  I had a yummy margarita with sloe gin added for sweetness and color.  Margie had a mojito, very minty.

The bread was excellent.  The little tray of salts from around the world was precious, but not terribly helpful.

(An older version of the menu is here.)

I had a Caesar Salad.  It was … exotic, but not all that great.  Too little dressing, and the warm, savory, wet croutons (?) were not all that.  Margie’s asparagus salad was good, but not faboo.

The wine list (old version here) was extensive, well-organized, and quite pricey.  Not overpriced per se, but tending toward more expensive wines (lots of things in the three figure range).  We had a very nice “final night” Plumpjack cab (not three figures), which held up well to the succeeding food.

I had the New Mexico buffalo steak, which came with various vegies, a funky crouton of some sort, a “hash” of “legacy potatoes” and oxtail, and a spinach underpinning.  The whole was lumped very artistically in the middle of the plate, and the portions were reasonable but … nothing really melded or stood out or reinforced each other, even though the individual ingredients were solid quality and well-prepared.  The buffalo was tasty but lean.  The hash was really individual ingredients.  The “razzcherry” demi-glace wasn’t strong enough to matter, but present enough to distract.

This is not me being hoity-toity.  But when paying the prices and getting the ingredients, I expect the whole to surpass the parts — especially when the whole is stacked artistically together in the middle of the plate with a flower on top.  It didn’t. 

Margie’s beef tenderloin suffered in much the same way.  The orzo was the most interesting bit, but the overall impression didn’t stand up to the quality of the ingredients or even the individual preparations of each part.

We decided to have dessert (old menu here).  Ironically, after having had an artistic mound for the entree, the desserts were deconstructed across the plate.  I had a “Bee Keeper Honey Spice Cake” (good, if slightly underbaked) with maple ice cream (not particularly mapley) and some sort of flavor drizzle (honey? Not much flavor).  Good dessert wine with that.  Margie had a chocolate mini-cake with walnut ice cream and etc.  Again, the sum did not match the parts, even when presented as parts.

The coffee was quite good.

Service:  Service was highly professional.  Things came and went in an appropriately swift fashion, pleasant and competent.  The only false note was being able to hear the recommendations from our waiter for the entrees for the evening — which varied (without prompting)  from table to table.

Ambience:  Though part of the Eldorado Hotel, the space is quite separate and very nicely appointed.

Prices:  You are paying here for the space, the service, and the ingredients, plus (ostensibly) the cooking.  This dinner (albeit with a very nice bottle of wine and cocktails) cost as twice what any other dinner we had this week did.  Was it twice as good?  Alas, no.

Overall:  We had 6 p.m. reservations on a Friday, and were a little late, but even on opening night of the Santa Fe opera, we had no trouble being seated.  (We were a scosh underdressed vs the opera patrons, but once they were gone, we fit in fine.)

The Old House should be a destination restaurant, a “oh, if you have the time and the bucks, here’s the place to have the truly excellent meal of your stay.” It sadly fell short of that mark.  Not to say I didn’t clean my plate, or that the ideas and ingredients weren’t interesting and well-thought, or that I felt truly ripped off.  But it just didn’t … quite … gel.  Sadly, because I was expecting a lot more (especially after the bread).  It was good, but not AAA Four-Diamond Rating (or was that the price?) great.

The Old House, Eldorado Hotel, 309 W. San Francisco St. (a couple blocks west of the Plaza), Santa Fe, NM – (505) 995-4530