CAFÉ MIMOSA
All - brunch spot now open
It’s nice when a restaurant delivers what it promises. Single-letter names and oblique references to indie songs or fairy tales make evocative names for establishments, but sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what you’ll be eating when you arrive. Not so with Santa Fe’s newest brunch spot, the appropriately monikered Café Mimosa, which lets you know up front what kind of vibe you’ll find inside.
Café Mimosa had a soft opening about two weeks ago but officially opened its doors on Mother’s Day, and is the joint project of business partners Lisa Dion and chef Alex Hadidi. Dion, a writer and editor, splits her time between San Francisco and Santa Fe, and Hadidi is a French-Algerian transplant by way of New York City, but because Santa Fe is a vortex, they met here and became friends.
Hadidi studied math and engineering in college, but while attending graduate school in Minneapolis, he and his friends started doing brunches on the weekends, and he realized he had a flair for it. A few years and culinary school later (he attended the French Culinary Institute in New York), he became a professional chef, cooking for Robert DeNiro at the actor’s Tribeca Grill, for example, and later serving on the faculty of Le Cordon Bleu in Atlanta. But in an old Santa Fe story, he came to the City Different, fell in love with it and decided to move on in. Since coming to Santa Fe, Hadidi’s cuisine has been reserved for his private clientele, but now, if you’re willing to wake up for it (and I think you can manage to get out of bed by at least noon), Hadidi will cook for you, too.
“We are serving breakfast and lunch, but we’re calling it brunch because the name ‘mimosa’ conjures up the image of relaxing with sparkling wine and juice on a Sunday, and we wanted that spirit to infuse the whole week,” Dion says.
The concept of Café Mimosa is a no-brainer: It’s brunch every day, from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. The menu, which will be rolled out in its full form over the course of the summer as the cafe gets its sea legs, is a collaboration of Hadidi’s and Dion’s tastes, and offers all the brunch classics as well many of the trendier offerings, like the now-ubiquitous avocado toast, which Café Mimosa serves simply with lemon and sea salt.
“Alex definitely has the French training, and he likes the benedicts and heavy, brunchy-type food; and I like more of the healthier stuff,” Dion says. “We kind of came together on that.”
The cuisine has a fresh, Mediterranean vibe, with things like Green Eggs and Ham (a scrambled egg dish with green chile and basil pesto) and Nico’s Breakfast, consisting of eggs any style, a chopped Mediterranean salad with feta, Greek yogurt, tahini and olives. There also are two different iterations of eggs Benedict — one classic with black forest ham and hollandaise, and one with smoked salmon, capers and red onion. And in a nod to Hadidi’s Algerian heritage, Café Mimosa offers something hard to find in Santa Fe: Shakshuka, a north African/Levantine dish of eggs baked in a spicy tomato sauce.
The almost-breakfast, bread-forward compositions known as “Toasts” are all the rage in breakfast town (the aforementioned avocado toast being the most popular), and Café Mimosa has a long list of them, including Pecorino and Toasted Almond served with figs, a version done as a BLT, and even a heavier Steak and Blue Cheese toast topped with caramelized onions (any of which you can make into full-on breakfast by adding a couple of eggs or some bacon).
Café Mimosa also is dedicated to serving the city’s various dietary needs — you can get gluten-free alternatives to most of the bready things (including the toasts) and even replace the English muffins in the Benedict with sautéed greens. The menu, with items ranging from $7 to $18, has a bit of a build-it-yourself quality to it that lets you have as little or as much brunch as you can handle that day.
“We found the usual lunch/brunch breakfast thing is usually a huge pile of things nobody can finish,” Dion says. “This is a little more à la carte.”
There are some sweeter options, too, like a Nutella Cinnamon Waffle served with fresh fruit and mango crème fraiche (available gluten-free), a Toasted Coconut Pancake and that other most trendy (and somewhat virtuous) of breakfast items, Chia Pudding Parfait. Chia seeds mixed with milk (or coconut or almond milk) become an omega-3-rich mass overnight in the fridge, and such parfaits are all the rage on the West Coast — Café Mimosa serves its version with fresh berries and toasted coconut.
Plus, if you want something a little closer to lunch, you can try the Lamb Tagine Casablanca with saffron broth or the Shrimp and Summer Squash Linguine, both of which will be available even in the morning.
“Since we consider it brunch, it’s going to be everything from 7 to [3],” Dion says. “I don’t imagine people will be ordering the shrimp linguine with summer squash at 7 a.m., but you never know.”
If you’ve lived here long enough, you might remember the spot now occupied by Café Mimosa as Back Street Bistro, known in particular for its Seinfeldworthy concoctions. Hadidi hopes to invoke the spirit of his predecessor and again make 513C Camino de los Marquez a soup destination.
“One of Alex’s fortes is that he’s a great soup maker,” Dion says. “He excels in that area. I’m assuming [Back Street Bistro’s] were good, but I’m assuming Alex’s soups are as good or better.” Those are big shoes to fill, but with four soups on the menu every day, and likely a rotating soup of the day, he has ample opportunities to prove it.
And yes, Café Mimosa did get proactive with its beer and wine license, so you can already order the titular libation with your Benedict. The signature mimosa currently includes blood orange juice, but as business ramps up, Dion and Hadidi likely will offer variations. After all, it’s 11:30 a.m., you’ve covered up that hangover with fabulous sunglasses and read the sign above the door — you know you’ve come to the right place.
IF YOU GO
What: Cafe Mimosa When: Open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily Where: 513C Camino de los Marquez More information: 505-3652112 or visit www.cafemimosa.co