Iconic restaurant updated
Favorite Taos eatery revamps menu to please locals and visitors alike
An iconic Taos restaurant has revamped its menu and updated its look. IMPRINT Hospitality acquired the historic Taos Inn earlier this year and has done some “progressive updating” to the restaurant and bar without shutting down completely. Improvements to the kitchen, equipment updates, and improving its layout have been part of the changes. There also are plans to rearrange the restaurant’s layout and private dining area.
The vision for the renovations was to create an experience unique to northern New Mexico for locals and visitors to its Doc Martin’s restaurant and Adobe Bar.
“The key was really working with the kitchen team on the revamping of the menu and really reinvigorating Doc Martin’s,” said Alexandra Walterspiel, managing partner of IMPRINT Hospitality. “The menu is mainly northern New Mexico. We want to be true to the identity of Taos.”
IMPRINT enlisted Zak Pelaccio, recipient of the 2016 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast, to serve as an advisor on the refashioning of the menu and beverage program.
Taos has a special place in the hearts of Pelaccio and his wife, fermentation specialist Jori Jayne Emde. They split their time between Taos and Hudson, New York, where Pelaccio has the restaurants Fish & Game and BackBar.
Pelaccio suggested finding a chef who had roots in Taos with a true knowledge of northern
New Mexican cuisine to run Doc Martin’s.
“… I ended up finding Nité (Marquez). His history is deep in Taos and his family has been there in the Arroyo Seco for many generations, and he’s bright and passionate and talented,” Pelaccio said.
Marquez owes his culinary chops to his mother, who was a chef.
“I was raised in kitchens because I lost my dad when I was 1 (year old),” Marquez said. “… I was born and raised in kitchens. My mom got sick when I was around 8 (years old). She taught me how to cook. I’d go cook for her and bring her food at home in bed. She passed when I was 11.”
Marquez attended New Mexico State University and later returned to Taos. He worked at Doc Martin’s in the 1980s and later moved on to other fine dining restaurants. He recently became the chef at Doc Martin’s. His goal is to keep guests coming back to have their “hearts filled with joy and love, and their bellies with good food.”
Offerings on the revamped menu include appetizers New Mexican fry bread with Taos raw honey and Ortega’s beef jerky, as well as Anasazi bean soup with chicos and crispy pork belly.
Entrees include New Mexican Bison with pinon-anchovy butter, grilled green chiles and two-corn polenta; grilled rainbow trout with camino de paz green chile yogurt, roasted fingerling potatoes and scallions, as well as king trumpet mushrooms and huitlacoche mole with corn tortillas.
“I’m sourcing all the food locally as much as I can, and I reached out to a lot of farmers and people that raise pigs and chickens,” Marquez said. “I’m trying to bring the local ingredients and trying to move in the direction that the world is moving and that’s having a healthy options, gluten free options. Healthy is what I am trying to do (using) my style with a New Mexican touch.”