Beyond Google: Finding the Best New Mexico Food the Old-Fashioned Way

The instructions were clear, absolute, and brooked no argument.

“When you get to Taos, don’t stop – just keep driving.”

The waitress, Debbie, gave me a look usually reserved for people who ask if the chile is spicy. Then, deciding I might be trainable, she leaned in, grabbed a coaster, and added another pen stroke to the map of New Mexico food forming in front of me. “It’s another two miles down the road on the left-hand side. Slow down or you’ll miss the turn.”

She underlined the address on the back of our breakfast receipt, the paper slightly translucent from maple syrup fingerprints. Then, after a theatrical pause, she cracked a smile like a sunrise.

“Boy, you haven’t been to New Mexico until you’ve had a Pueblo Dog at Tiwa.” I wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise, but either way, I was sold.

No Apps, No Algorithms, Just New Mexico Food

New Mexico food has been something of a secret that inspires fervor from its devotees. The moment I mentioned I was heading that way, people reacted with evangelical enthusiasm.

“You have to do dinner at El Pinto in Albuquerque. And when you get to Santa Fe, be sure to breakfast at Pasqual’s – but go early.”

I managed both during this trip, and it was at Pasqual’s, where I met Debbie, who changed the course of the trip with her Pueblo Dog recommendation.

Interior of cafe with calendars hanging above windows and warm lighting — **Breakfast at Pasqual’s, Santa Fe © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

From that point on, I decided to go full analog. No apps, no reviews, just an old-fashioned curiosity and a series of handwritten recommendations to find our New Mexico food. I started asking locals – waitresses, bartenders, hotel clerks – where they’d eat if tourists weren’t asking.

The result? A glorious mess of receipts, coasters, and grease-stained scraps of paper scribbled with the names of unforgettable dishes and dives I’d never have found from a Google search.

Feeling A Little Chile

To say chiles are central to New Mexico food is testing understatement to its limit. They’re everywhere. They dangle in bundles from lampposts (only dried reds, mind you), appear on license plates, and dominate menus. They manage somehow to even sneak into political debates.

Two roles of red chiles dangling from lamppost against a blue sky and adobe buildings — **Dried chiles hanging in Santa Fe Plaza © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

Their precise origins are a bit hazy. What is clear is that the Pueblo peoples were cultivating them long before the Spanish rolled in. Columbus, never one to leave something spicy behind, took them back to Europe in the 16th century, unleashing them on a continent wholly unprepared for what was to come.

The chile is the official state vegetable. “Red or green?” is the official state question. And, in a recent flex of legislative muscle, the smell of roasting green chile has been named the official state aroma. I wished I had been a fly on the wall for that debate.

“Red or green” is actually a trickier question than you’d think. The heat within a chile depends on the variety used and whether it is fresh or dry. Green chiles are harvested before they’re mature, creating a fresh, vegetal taste and a milder flavor. Red are often sweeter and stronger, due to the higher capsaicin level within the fruit and the length of time they mature on the vine.

Blue Highways, Christmas Chiles

Prior to this trip, my only knowledge of New Mexican chile came from William Least Heat-Moon’s cautionary tale in Blue Highways:

“New Mexican salsas are mouth-watering, eye-watering, nose-watering; they clean the pipes, ducts, tracts, tubes; and like spider venom, they can turn innards to liquid.”

Trying to navigate my innards remaining solid, I asked Joaquin, a local private chef we got into conversation with over a beer, which he preferred. He demurred for a second, as though answering a deeply philosophical question. “I do green on my enchiladas, red with chile con carne, and Christmas on my eggs.”

Excuse me? That was a handbrake turn.

“Christmas” turns out to be New Mexico shorthand for culinary indecision (or ambition), where both red and green chiles appear on the same plate.

Plate of beans, ground beef and red and green Chile — **Christmas Chile © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

It also gives waitstaff a chance to throw out all manner of puns.

“Let’s hope it’s not the Nightmare Before Christmas,” quipped Rita as I declined a double helping on my breakfast burrito. It was 7 a.m. on a cold spring morning, and I was still making peace with the concept of hot sauce before daylight.

Heat At Breakfast

We were at Pantry Rio (another of Debbie’s recommendations), one of Santa Fe’s longest-running breakfast joints.

The burritos come heavy and unapologetic, and the sopapillas – lightly fried pastries with a puffy texture and hollow centre – are warm and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

They’re served with honey, just in case your dawn taste buds weren’t already confused enough. Sweet, spicy, savoury, hot…it felt less like breakfast and more like a sensory ambush.

But if New Mexico does anything gently, I hadn’t found it yet.

The Book of Rita

When the bill came, Rita asked about our plans for the day. Upon hearing we were headed south, she waved us back into our seats and pulled out a battered notebook. She rattled off names and addresses with the brisk efficiency of a general dispatching troops. Each recommendation was delivered with reverence and absolute certainty.

She was right. On the drive south to White Sands, we pulled into Pistachio Land, roadside Americana at its finest, and found ourselves eating ice cream that could go toe-to-toe with proper Italian gelato. The lemon-garlic pistachios we picked up became the undisputed snack of the trip.

Man holding ice cream standing in front of giant model pistachio against blue sky backdrop — **Pistachio Land and is amazing Gelato © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

Before we had departed, I’d asked Rita about the most unusual use of chile she had come across.

In Albuquerque, El Pinto served sopapillas stuffed with ground beef and red chile, and a carne adovada so tender it felt vaguely indecent. Rita and her notebook were toasted more than once.

After pausing for a second – and clearly dismissing the premise of my question that anything with chile could be considered unusual – she recommended we try Sierra Blanca’s Green Chile Cerveza.

“It’s more subtle than hot,” she said, adding with a knowing smile, “You should just about be OK with it.”

“We Use Whatever The Land Gives Us”

Curiosity won out. On Rita’s recommendation, we headed to the Sierra Blanca Brewery in Moriarty, an hour south of Santa Fe. There we learned that the chiles are steeped like oversized teabags in post-fermentation lager for a week.

The result? A smooth sip with a delayed kick, the lager equivalent of a Malbec with opinions. The tasting flight also included a pecan ale, cherry wheat, and a dangerously drinkable whiskey stout.

“We use whatever the land gives us,” said the barman, gesturing toward the surrounding scrub and farmland. “It’s worked out pretty well.”

Judging by the 12,000-square-foot facility, half-acre beer garden, and dozen-strong tap list, I’d agree.

The Dogs of New Mexico

On our final day, we dug out Debbie’s handwritten recommendation, rescued from the back of a coaster, and headed north.

Tiwa Kitchen, perched on the outskirts of historic Taos Pueblo, looks more like a roadside gas station than anything Michelin has on speed dial. As Debbie warned, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of place, sitting in quiet isolation between the old pueblo and the newer town three miles away.

But what Tiwa lacks in signage and polish, it more than makes up for in substance.

Everything here is handmade, right down to the hornos, the traditional adobe ovens that have been baking bread and feeding travelers for over thirty years. Nothing is rushed. Every dish reflects the layered histories that make New Mexican cuisine so compelling.

A roadside sign for Tiwa Kitchen made out of adobe, standing on scrubland — **Tiwa Kitchen, Taos © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

It’s drive-thru only at the moment, so we pulled up to the window and, with Debbie’s ghostly finger wagging from the rear-view mirror, placed our order.

First up: red beef stew. Rich, sticky, and boldly hearty, it came with thick slices of oven bread and, inevitably, a side of green chile. This one had the look of a rustic chimichurri and the taste of fire-roasted vegetables with just enough heat to keep things interesting, a perfect foil to the depth of the stew.

Then came the much-anticipated Pueblo Dogs: seasoned beef wrapped in warm, freshly made frybread and topped with red chile. Frybread appears all over the menu – stuffed into tacos, cradling burgers, and, in this case, threatening to redecorate the interior of our rental car with a path of crumbs.

A Complex Back Story

Later, I dug into the complicated history behind this dish: frybread emerged in 1864 during the forced relocation of Native American communities, when the U.S. government handed out rations of flour, lard, sugar, and salt to people suddenly living on land where their traditional crops wouldn’t grow.

Man holding frybread covered hotdog to camera in an outside scene with bare trees on the horizon — **My First Pueblo Dog With Its Complex Backstory © Phil Thomas, Someone Else’s Country 2025**

Today, frybread sits at the heart of an ongoing debate: some see it as a painful reminder of displacement; others as a reclaimed staple of survival and identity.

Tiwa leans into the latter, blending it confidently with classic New Mexican ingredients like green and red chile. The result is a fusion that blends multiple cuisines and histories: crisp frybread, juicy beef, and the now-inevitable hit of chile heat.

As we pulled back onto the highway toward Taos Pueblo, full and slightly euphoric, we were already rifling through our coaster notes, debating which name to chase next.

Because in New Mexico, asking “Where would you recommend?” will always get you further than Google ever will.

If You Go

If you’d like to follow my footsteps:

Café Pasqual’s (Santa Fe)

Address: 121 Don Gaspar Ave, Santa Fe Hours: Daily, breakfast & lunch: 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM, Dinner (Sun–Thu): 5:30 PM – 9:30 PM, Dinner (Fri–Sat): 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM