Food Year’s Resolutions - Santa Fe Reporter

When you’ve written about food for as long as I have, you have to start thinking outside the box a bit when it comes to keeping it fresh. Thus, I’m resolving in 2026 to try and get a little more invested in how I review restaurants. I was thinking about this in my off-time during Christmas, and I think it’s going to benefit all of us greatly. As such, here’s a small list of things I’d like to keep in the forefront of my mind as I’m eating my way across town in the coming 12 months.

No more they-did-their-best-ing myself

I said something to this effect when I was ragging on some local pizzas recently, but I’m hereby fed up with “yeah, but they tried so hard,” as an excuse for sloppy and/or boring food. This will often be tied to price points, as I fully believe that a sloppy container of kickass tacos can be as life-changing as that bazillion dollar cut of steak, and there will, of course, be degrees by which I conduct this research. The short version is that if I’m shelling out serious money, I’ll expect serious results.

You won’t see me coming

There are those times when a chef or an owner or an owner-chef recognizes me when I come to dine, but I might start wearing disguises or something. The point of food reviews is to sample the goods on any given day or night, just as the normies of this town might, and I’m planning on showing up during weird hours and downtimes—something about how a restaurant is only as good as its output at its quietest moments. Take, for example, my years working at The Shed. Some winter nights we were dead, but the folks in that kitchen still made it a point to slay it at the same level of awesomeness they would channel during the busiest rushes. I maintain that most people who go into food as a career want what’s best for their customers because—get this—they sincerely enjoy doing a good job feeding people. Otherwise, everyone should know you’re a weird restaurant with weird practices, because most of us are poor now.

Great(er) expectations

’m sure I’ve said this before, but if your menu is some sort of unwitting homage to Panera’s bland offerings, maybe you’re just not creative enough to do a restaurant. It’s fully on me to try and suss out the restaurants that have at least a little twist on the burger or something, but if I have to see one more grilled salmon as an option I’ll have little choice but to be sad about it. You know what’s a good example? Some of the dishes at Time Travelers Gastropub. Sure, it’s a steak sandwich when we’re talking the London Royale, but it’s got mushrooms sourced locally and two kinds of cheese, so…uh, yeah, sign me up.

High(er) expectations of my damn self

I simply must expand my palate in 2026. To that end, I’m looking for suggestions in cuisine that hails from faraway lands. I want to fall in love with some dish I’ve never heard of or, like, try yak cheese or something out of the ordinary. I will likely fail at this more than once, but if I’m trying to get into the mindset of the person who tells people how to eat, I want to rep some of you weirdos out there who have come to the end of the foodie road only to keep going by always being willing to taste something new. Please note that I don’t super want to eat testicles or brains—I’ve had them before, and maybe I’m just not cool or whatever, but they’re not for me. OK, brains were for me one time, but I was in France and my dad tricked me into eating them!

Gotta find a wino

Longtime readers might remember the SFR column Pour Vida wherein certified wine-lover Mary Francis Cheeseman wrote about terroir and shady slopes and other wine terms. I’d like to be more willing to outsource the column to an expert now and again in 2026, though I think it’ll need to be someone who doesn’t work in food because their allegiances are sketchy and I’m no fool!

More salads!

Those of us who are of a certain age likely recall two major things about dinner when we were kids: You absolutely needed to clean your plate even if you weren’t hungry anymore and it wasn’t quite a meal without some piece of meat in there. Setting aside how I actually think it caused a lot of trauma to force-feed kids who’d finished eating, I’m on the prowl for some clever salads. Palacio, for example, has a delicious watermelon salad, plus a nice grilled chicken number with pears and candied pecans. What do y’all have for me that isn’t greens and a balsamic vinaigrette? Maybe that incoming Salad Fe restaurant might have some cool new options? This kind of speaks to expanding my palate, but I see such great untapped potential in the salad space that I can only hope someone working in a restaurant reads this and goes wild on something.

More chefs!

I scored what I think was a killer interview with chef Cristian Pontiggia last April as he was closing his Italian restaurant Sassella and phasing over to his new role at the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi. I resolve to get to know chefs better (Stella Achenbach of Leo’s, please call me—I’m not hard to find and I wanna talk to you so badly). Let’s get more into the mechanics of it all this year, and by “let’s,” I really just mean “Alex needs to.” That goes for anyone out there making something. Come find me. Let’s talk and let’s eat.

Alex De Vore

SFR Culture Editor Alex De Vore has written about the Santa Fe culture scene for over a decade and won awards for doing so. He’s pretty tired of Americana and still hopes new punk bands might happen.