Martin’s imaginative menu deserves exploration
The classics on offer are nonetheless excellent
Restaurant Martin opened only about a decade ago, but chef Martin Rios had at least a decade more of experience in Santa Fe kitchens. Out on his own, he has created a hybrid menu with all the obligatory foodie flourishes, yet is very basic at heart.
We enjoyed classics during a recent lunch: a burger, a salad, and a simple cake for dessert. All of it was excellent; none of it was spectacular. We wished we had chosen more imaginatively as there were many such choices on the menu.
The soup of the day was a butternut squash and green apple soup. It arrived as part of my soup-and-salad lunch combo ($10). I shared it with my guest and we agreed it was excellent: a rich and slightly sweet puree of butternut squash offset by the tart (should we say slightly sour?) tang of green apples, pureed separately and stirred in only slightly as a visual, as well as gustatory, counterpoint.
The salad was simple and excellent: a mix of greens with trimmings, laced with the house vinaigrette, which my guest (a ranch dressing kind of girl) absolutely loved. An endless consumer of vinaigrette with a hit-or-miss record on my own concoctions, I seriously admired its creamy consistency and absolutely right balance of tartness and unctuous edibility.
My guest chose “Restaurant Martin’s unique burger” ($16), a showstopper. What distinguished it, apart from the quality of the beef and the perfect grilling, were the trimmings. Home-made pickles? Restaurant Martin does them, a little sharper and more assertive than ordinary pickles. Lettuce and tomato and cheddar cheese, plus green chile, of course. Martin throws in bacon, nice crisp strips, and serves this sandwich with perfect, crispy brown fries.
But consider what we might have eaten: A Mexican-influenced shrimp tortilla soup, or a salad of coffee-roasted beets and winter squash with goat cheese, oranges and walnuts. Gnocchi with duck confit and garlic-tomato stew or grilled tuna with shrimp potstickers and stir-fried veggies. All the choices sounded quite wonderful and we resolved to be more adventurous on the next visit.
Dinner, by the way, involves downhome meats (short ribs, pork steak, duck breast) with exotic flourishes like trumpet mushrooms or sweet potato and mustard dumplings. Vegetarian offerings include a sampler platter that has earned admiring mention elsewhere, as well as seafood, often with Asian trimmings. We’ve also very much enjoyed the Sunday brunch, another flawless combination of standards like eggs Benedict (with smoked salmon) or French toast (with bananas Foster) and borrowings from the lunch menu.
Dessert, on the day we visited, presented yet more imaginative choices, ranging from chamomile panna cotta to coconut meringue cake or chocolate cream with walnut-laced, paper-thin pastry. The day’s special was a small coconut “cakelet” with raspberry cream and the merest trace of chocolate underpinnings ($7). The miniature bundt-like serving was easily enough for two.
It was delicious: subtly flavored with coconut and not too sweet. The pureed raspberry and cream garnish was a suitably tart foil. I fought (successfully) for the lion’s share of this prize — just compensation for the salad entree, I thought.
Like many a notable Santa Fe restaurant, Martin’s is located in an old house, on the corner of Galisteo and Paseo de Peralta. The interior is strikingly modern and airy nonetheless, and the back yard has been converted into a large patio punctuated with colorful umbrellas that is, in season, a favorite for lunch and for dinner on long summer evenings. Service here is excellent, as you’d expect.