Amuse-bouche
El Callejon, reviewed
Before it shuttered a few years ago, El Paseo was a downtown institution. The hole-in-the-wall watering hole on Galisteo Street was the place you went to watch the big game, see your friend’s band play, or hide out for a quiet beer and a dollar taco. It was never quite sparkling, but never seedy, either. Friendly, fun, and often blessedly tourist-free, this alley cat of an establishment was staffed by bartenders who were quick to learn who you were and where you worked.
El Callejon, the restaurant opened by LiAnn and Raul Morales in the same space in 2016, may not be a sticky-floored bar anymore, with its brightening makeover of burnt-orange walls, colorful murals, and carefully positioned katsinas. But it is the heir apparent to its predecessor’s laid-back vibe — Raul even worked as manager of El Paseo from 2001 to 2012. And if El Callejon isn’t quite a place where everybody knows your name yet, it’s approaching something like that, with sweetly personal service and mostly well-priced, dependably good Mexican (and some American) food.
One quiet dinner at the long polished bar began with a sincere inquiry into both how our days had gone, along with the current quality of the weather outside, sparking a warm rapport that lasted the entire meal. The restaurant serves wine, beer, and cocktails made from both. A tart agave-wine margarita, though steep at $10.25, was well-matched with the citrusy bite of two blue-corn tostadas topped with plump shrimp and tender fish ceviche. Studded with tomatoes and jalapeños and served on a riotously colorful bed of lemon, orange, cucumber, avocado, and lime slices with whitecorn chips, it was an appetizer generous in both portion and flavor. Next arrived a juicy bone-in chicken breast smothered in the Morales family’s mole recipe from the central Mexico state of Aguascalientes, where Raul and his brother, head chef Alfredo, grew up. Dotted with sesame seeds, the mole was sweetly nutty and pleasantly spicy, if not entirely complex, and served with a mound of Spanish rice that included peas and carrots. A green-chile cheeseburger was a nice medium-rare, packed with juicy charbroiled flavor and chile that bit back.
On a lunchtime visit, we shared a parfait glass of fantastic shrimp cocktail in a spicy, lime-soaked tomato sauce. Packed with sliced avocado and red onion and served with saltine crackers, El Callejon’s version is one of those hard-to-find simple menu items done extraordinarily well. I’ll be back for more soon, as well as another serving of the mild but thoughtfully seasoned red-chile pork posole, served with cabbage, lime wedges, and chips. Both these items showcase what Morales is doing best in this corner of Santa Fe, marrying fresh ingredients with classic recipes and presenting them with an unpretentious grace — and extra limes.
Choosing three tacos each (from the nine on the menu), we ranked them in order of our favorites: soft, spicy, impeccable shredded barbacoa; flavorful, lemony pollo asado; plump calabacitas with asadero cheese and sautéed poblano; tender, citrusy white fish and shrimp; and marinated, grilled al pastor with pineapple that nonetheless lacked the big flavor of the other meat tacos.
We were equally impressed by our substantial sides of vinegary escabeche and tangy home-cooked black beans, as well as the care our server paid to packing up an order of flan to go. Back at the office, we attacked that dessert with the help of two recruits. Each one of us was delighted by the unusual vanilla-cookie crust at the bottom of the custard, if less bowled over by the sweet, caramel-sauced flan itself.
With semi-affordable lunch options ever-dwindling in downtown Santa Fe, El Callejon is also a viable option to serve that need, with salads, tortas, burgers, and even a portobello mushroom sandwich, all priced between $9 and $12.50. The mouth-watering Reuben is served on toasted marble rye and piled high with pastrami and gooey melted Swiss cheese and Thousand Island. These are plated with escabeche and a choice of chips, onion rings, or waffle fries, the latter being beguilingly thick-cut and well seasoned.
The bar menu, packed with tasty-sounding snack options like jalapeño poppers, potato skins, and Buffalo wings, most likely puts its predecessor’s offerings to shame. The array of El Callejon’s small-plate options, coupled with the restaurant’s unfailingly kind service, practically requires a visit here with your buds for a beer or two. Those of us who have lamented the too-frequent demises of family-owned downtown businesses can’t afford not to put our money where our mouths are these days. So get thee to El Callejon for a deluxe yet cost-effective lunch. March Madness is upon us, and after watching a game or two on the big TVs there, you might even start to learn everyone’s names on your own.