A blend of South America and the Middle East
Eatery also fills coffee shop void in Baca District
Ihad popped into Cafecito, the eclectic Argentinian café that opened last fall in the Trailhead Compound of the Railyard’s Baca District, just once before the COVID-19 shutdown. Even then, the location — in the sunny, industrial-chic space that once housed Opuntia — struck me as ideally socially distanced.
Tucked away on sleepy Shoofly Street at the end of the Acequia Trail, the two-story Trailhead Compound is the design creation of Serquis + Associates, Landscape Architects — also known as Cafecito’s owners, Solange Serquis and her husband, Andres Paglayan. The greenhouse-like restaurant facing the street is the building’s crown jewel and, under the direction of Serquis and Paglayan, its South America-meetsMiddle East menu fills a void in Santa Fe’s coffee shop scene.
Cafecito’s offerings reflect the Buenos Aires origins of the couple, with all the diversity of that city, and the menu also features a few nods to their Armenian heritage. That means 12 different kinds of empanadas, including a gluten-free option. Since the simple hand pies freeze well, the café has added three different frozen samplers for take-out during the pandemic closure ($30-$50). There are also five salad options, including an Armenian Medze sampler (hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, pita); six hefty sandwiches served with side salads; and plenty of thoughtful sides, such as rosemary French fries and truffle butter toast.
I didn’t know how lucky I was to be dining inside on that first visit, but I still relished the kind service and the Classic empanada sampler ($10). The plate included empanadas de carne (spiced ground beef and onion), verdura (spinach and ricotta) and jamón y queso (ham and cheese), accompanied by a salad of fresh mixed greens and sliced tomatoes. The small pies are formed from a delicate, sweet-salty dough, each one shaped differently: the ham and cheese empanada featured a mostly hollow cavity with delicately sliced ham piled in one corner; the verdura was dense with creamy ribbons of spinach and cheese; the carne reminded me of a slightly spicier, potato-free Michigan pasty. They’re served with a vinegary chimichurri sauce weighted with scallions, parsley and oregano, and dotted with chile flakes. I preferred the other sauce, a fiery, nutty chile paste that significantly amps the heat of whatever you dip into it. And I knew I’d be back for the house-made lemonade ($4 for 16 oz.), which has that hard-to-find perfect balance of sweet and tart, along with a lovely froth.
Several weeks later, I ordered from a slightly abbreviated menu via curbside pickup. With the exception of the slightly soggy, but still very tasty, herb-flecked rosemary French fries ($3.75), the food suffered not at all from being boxed and transported across town. The substantial square ciabatta slices of the Lomito Completo ($11.50), a traditional Argentinian steak sandwich, soaked up any grease left over from the amply flavored steak strips, which were embedded in a complex strata of romaine lettuce, sliced red onion and tomato, ham, provolone, mayonnaise and fried egg. A pretty roasted beet salad ($8) starred a fanned-out array of earthy yellow and red beets from Reunity Resources, mixed greens, feta and a mustard vinaigrette, though it was missing its advertised candied chile pecans.
The Taste of Argentina for two ($40), another COVID-born innovation, offered five empanadas (carne, verdura, jamón y queso, ricotta, and humita) with sauces; two dinner servings of flat-pounded, breaded Chicken Milanesas accompanied by mashed potatoes, haricots verts, and a large arugula and tomato salad. Dessert was a too-dry slice of lemon poppyseed cake and the much better alfajores, or powdered sugar dulce de leche sandwich cookies. Altogether, it’s a good value for two hefty meals, and the uniformly cooked, still-tender and delicately flavored chicken was a standout.
Like many restaurants during this uncertain era, Cafecito is still retooling its menu, figuring out what works best for takeout — as well as how to round out certain niches in this rapidly changing dining landscape. Its three newest empanadas are fantastic: a warming Santa Fe (chicken and green chile, $4.20), Tango (small beef strips, tomato sofrito, onion, $4.20) and Vegan (black bean and mashed sweet potato, $3.50). I’m excited to try the Lehmeyun, a larger Middle Eastern-via-South America spiced ground beef variety ($6). And at some point, I’ll be back for a proper sit-down iced yerba mate ($4) or dulce de leche latte ($4.75) on the pleasant gravel patio.
Cafecito adds to every order a helpful guide to identifying empanada flavors by shape, as well as instructions for baking the frozen pies at home, if you go that route. It’s the kind of customerfriendly, at-home dining innovation that many cafés have pivoted to during the pandemic. I look forward to seeing this kind of sweet service last much longer than the shutdown.