SANTA FE elegance
Bistro 315 lives up to reputation for fine food, excellent service
Bistro 315 qualifies as a Santa Fe institution in my book. It’s been open for at least 20 years, housed in a rambling and higgledy-piggledy old house. It has a patio. And it honors Santa Fe’s iconic festivals like Indian Market, as well as America’s “high holidays” of the Christmas season, with special menus.
The food features local ingredients, and consequently, offerings (and accompaniments) vary widely, as they should when season- and marketconscious chefs are in charge. The wine list seems formidable without sacrificing the unsophisticated (or underfunded) customer.
We visited recently and were more than pleased with our pre-holiday dinners. Best of all, we happened on a couple of bargains. Featured fresh oysters, for example, were available at half-price, as was anything on the wine list. Bistro’s Christmas present to us!
We started with a half-dozen oysters, served simply on ice ($9). We opted for the large British Columbia variety over the two East Coast offerings and were more than pleased. Plump, briny and scrupulously fresh, these are among my favorite seafoods, and so I eschewed the three sauces offered alongside: a cocktail sauce, a brisk horseradish and a more intriguing mix of cilantro and lime juice that the less fanatical in the party pronounced a good match for the oysters.
The house onion soup ($14), a Bistro classic, was pronounced wonderful, too. It was the real (and totally simple) thing: a nicely flavored beef consommé laden with tender onions and croutons and topped with broiled Comté cheese. The four of us ate every bit.
But as our entree choices soon revealed, this was to be a seafood evening. I considered a plate of steak and frites, featuring lots of coarseground pepper and a béarnaise sauce. Or what about Bistro’s charcuterie plate? I love charcuterie in all its forms. … But mussels in white wine were on the menu ($26), and shellfish lover that I am, I could not resist.
They were perfect, fresh and meaty, and they were served in a classic white wine, garlic and parsley broth livened by the mussel juice, of course, and a little tomato. I gave Bistro
315 points for restraint with the tomatoes — I remain a purist on this dish, and back in the days when I first encountered it in France, tomatoes played no role. In the Bistro’s treatment, they didn’t overpower the other flavors, but subtly enhanced them.
The accompanying fried potatoes, another nonstarter for me, were quickly distributed among my guests. For the record, they looked really good: big, thick wedges, crisply deep-fried to a deep toast shade. The recipients loved them. I ordered more crusty bread, the better to mop up the mussel juice.
Among us, we demolished plates of grouper ($28), a menu standard; salmon ($28); and an all-fish kebab featuring scallops and shrimp ($27). All were excellent, and each was served with slightly different accompaniments, another flourish we admired and enjoyed.
The sautéed salmon, for example, arrived atop a bed of onions and savory greens that had been nicely subdued by the frying pan, and the perfect foil for a rich and oily fish. Accompanying the grouper — often on the menu — were tiny potatoes.
The kebab arrived, and after a sample bite proffered by my guest, was my favorite (mussels excepted, of course). The seafood was unadorned with flavorings save for the smoky overtones of its brief encounter with a grill — just right for bland scallops and slightly more assertive shrimp. Bistro 315 was mobbed when we dined, but the staff and the kitchen are apparently unflappable. The waiter did ask us, after he delivered our appetizers, if we were in a hurry. We weren’t, which seemed to please him. Our meal was well-paced, we had plenty of time for conversation without feeling like we were just passing time, and we were finished in an hour and a half — certainly quickly enough for us, as well as for three courses.
The service was excellent, as you’d expect at a high-end Santa Fe institution. I liked the art, which I assume rotates, enough to note the name of the artist and the gallery that represents her. And, as I noted, Bistro 315 remains affordable to the common herd: The bill for four was $165, including the wine but before tip, or just over $40 apiece, very reasonable for those three excellent courses.