Food xxxx
Atmosphere xxxx
Value xxxxIt’s hard to imagine a meal that can compete with the gorgeous drive past folded coral hills to Chimayó, about a half-hour north of Santa Fe. Luckily Leona’s, rather than competing with the drive, adds a special reward at the end of the road. We loved the trip and eagerly looked forward to lunch.
Leona’s is in an old, tin-roofed, flagstone-floored adobe to the side of the Santuario de Chimayó, with a couple of add-on rooms, the way things used to look around here. Inside are a tiny counter where you order and pay; a few tables for two; and a display counter with jars of Leona’s chiles and salsas as well as other New Mexican specialties. The back room has a large table for five and a picnic table for more. Ristras hang from everything. Outside are a few tables for warm weather and that’s it.
A few months ago Leona, for health reasons, cut back from a full restaurant offering to a more limited menu, though she is now taking orders in person at the counter. Currently the choices are pork and red-chile tamales, chicken and green-chile tamales, vegetable tamales (with or without cheese), guacamole and a few desserts. She may expand the menu in the future, she said, but not back to the original.
We ordered two pork and two chicken tamales ($1.75 each), guacamole and chips ($2.75), iced tea ($1) and capirotada ($1.50), traditional New Mexican bread pudding. We picked up some plastic utensils, paper napkins, salt and pepper to take to our tables. As we sat down, the cinnamon from the capirotada in its little plastic cup was so tempting I ate half my dessert first. Only a look from my wife prevented me from finishing it on the spot.
As in all good tamales, the filling inside the husk was mostly cornmeal masa, with the meat’s role that of providing flavor. Leona’s masa was delicate, fresh and moist, with enough chile to provide a heat not to be ignored. I liked the pork tamales better than the chicken, which I found
a little dry, but just a little. The pork filling is actually carne adovada, and if the tamale is any indication, I can only hope carne adovada is the next addition to Leona’s new menu. The guacamole was mild but good. The iced tea was strong enough so that you could tell it was tea, not water, even with your eyes closed. The bread pudding, very soft, was as good at ending the meal as it had been beginning it.
In the front of the room, the mail-order menu and the display items indicate a sophisticated business approach, suggesting that the restaurant’s ambience is a conscious choice. After lunch my wife made serious inroads into the salsas, pancake mixes and relishes for our daughter
languishing out of state. I picked up a jar each
of Leona’s red and green. These are no longer served fresh at the restaurant, but at home I sampled both. In each case the ingredients are chile, water, garlic and salt. The green is chunky, well-flavored, perhaps with more water than absolutely necessary for reheating. The red, though, is deep and pure,
a resonant baritone of a chile taste. Both are hot, but not show-off hot;
the flavor comes through beautifully.
We spotted no signage for Leona’s until we got to the restaurant. Once in Chimayó, follow the signs to the Santuario. You’ll find the restaurant next to the church, off to one side.
Lunch for two with guacamole and chips, four tamales, an iced tea and one dessert was $13, excluding tip and the $40 worth of mail-order items we bought for our kid.
ttt
Adjacent to Santuario de Chimayó, 505-351-4569
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Monday
Handicapped-accessible
AMEX • DISC • MC • V • No checks
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