Santa Fe, New Mexico

When Amy {of What Jew Wanna Eat} and I arrived in Santa Fe, we were warned that everyone wishes they had just a few more days to experience everything the city has to offer. Within hours of our itinerary, we already knew the feeling. We jam-packed our Wednesday to Saturday itinerary. And when we missed a beat, we didn’t fret. It was understood that we’d catch that thing on our next trip to Santa Fe.

It was during our last trip together where I discovered how much I love a scheduled massage first on the agenda. I’m wound so incredibly tight that massages are my best chance for quickly entering vacation mode. Knowing this, we drove straight from the Albuquerque airport to the Buffalo Thunder Resort for our “get into vacation mode” treatment which consisted of an express massage, lots of beautiful cocktails, and the best beef selection imaginable. Every hotel should offer this trifecta upon check-in!

From there, we drove up a nearby mountain to Izanami: an upscale Izakaya restaurant located in the Ten Thousand Waves spa. Motivated by our food-driven days ahead, we opted to climb the 91 steps that led to the restaurant rather than hitching a ride.

The interior was intentionally different than most dinner dining experiences. With brighter lighting and without background music, the focus was on conversation without distraction. And with guest attire ranging from spa gear to business suits, the entire vibe of the restaurant was welcoming.

We ordered the omakase {tasting menu} so we could experience as much of the menu as possible. The omakase also included a ton of seafood, which appealed to Amy and me after our beef-filled lunch. My favorite was the hamachi and tuna dish pictured above. I’m such a fan of fish served with citrus.

After a very long first day, we checked into our room at the Inn of the Governors. I can’t write enough positives about this hotel. First, it was in the center of it all. From the time we arrived, we barely needed to drive anywhere. And the decor let you know exactly where you were at all times, vacation in Santa Fe. I appreciate when a hotel is part of the town. The hotel also had super cute social activities like tea and sherry happy hour where they encourage guests to mingle. And although we didn’t have time to fit it in, word on the street is one of the best burgers in town can be found at the hotel’s bar, Del Charro.

Our first breakfast in Santa Fe was at Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen. We shared a few dishes like the breakfast burrito {pictured above} that was stuffed with black beans, sweet potato, fried egg, and green chile. It’s easy for a burrito of any kind to be on the heavier side and I was pleased that Sweetwater Harvest’s version was on the lighter side and made with feel-good ingredients. We also sampled the carrot cake quinoa bowl and housemade kombucha, both of which were fantastic. I’m definitely going to try to recreate carrot cake quinoa at home – so keep an eye out for that on Instagram!

Next on our agenda was Meow Wolf, an immersive art experience a few minutes from downtown. This was, hands down, my favorite art exhibit of any kind {ever}. It was a cross between a funky art gallery, an abandoned haunted house, and a life-size play house. And I loved it! Amy and I splurged on the one-dollar 3D glasses, which made everything come to life {even more}. And we spent hours climbing through secret passageways. At one point, we climbed through a refrigerator that led us into a room filled with a glow in the dark dinosaur skeleton and then left the dinosaur by crawling out of a fireplace that led into a fully decorated living room.

Left to right, up and down, the inside of Meow Wolf was covered with things that blew your mind. Whether it was a walkway of neon, glow in the dark trees or a wall of TVs playing a combination of old movies and random static patterns, you could never predict what was up next or how one thing led to the other. We could have spent the rest of the day there, but chocolate elixirs were calling our names.

Kakawa Chocolate House was a place that we couldn’t help but go to twice. During our first visit, we shared a salted caramel brownie and sampled almost ever single elixir before deciding on one to fill our cups. Our second time around, we ordered the equivalent of chocolate “take-out”: a half dozen truffles, chocolate elixir mix to-go, and an elixir cup for our blogger bud in Austin.

Lunch at Cowgirl gave us a chance to binge on the green chiles we’d heard so much about. Amy added green chiles to her turkey reuben. And my mind was made up as soon as I saw “The Mother”, a winning burger in the Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown! “The Mother” is made up of a beef and buffalo patty topped with melted brie, truffled green chile, and tomato with a cheddar and green chile bun.  Typically a burger is a burger is a burger, but this was one of the most creative burgers I’d ever tasted!

Santa Fe has developed a Margarita Trail that is a really excellent way for restaurants/bars to collaborate and for visitors/residents to experience Santa Fe. We were able to check out one stop along the Margarita Trail by tasting the Tequila Mockingbird margarita at The Sage Inn. In addition to having the best margarita name possible, we both really enjoyed The Sage Inn’s take on this classic cocktail.

Our final meal of our first complete day in Santa Fe was at The Palace. Upon seating, Chef Jennifer Doughty came to our table to introduce herself and explain the menu. She offered to provide a sampling of a variety of menu items, a suggestion that was right up our alley. I especially enjoyed the porcupine shrimp, which consisted of giant shrimp wrapped in kataifi then fried. The shrimp was delicate and crunchy and totally hit the spot.

The next morning we ventured to the most adorable place on our journey, Modern General. The quaint store was filled with natural light, Anthropologie-esque kitchen and garden tools, and a restaurant that served up sweet and savory pancakes. I can’t recall the last time I had such an internal struggle about offering to share, but it was borderline painful to offer Amy a bite of my green chile cilantro corncakes – I loved them that much. I mean.. an egg on a pancake is just about the most FoodFash thing to do. And the best part of this visit was finding out that Modern General’s sister restaurant, Vinaigrette, serves these corncakes at their Austin location. Hooray!

Our last day was our first day to explore the downtown area, which was extremely pedestrian friendly and safe both day and night. There are dozens of museums we wanted to explore, but decided that the Georgia O’Keeffe museum was best for this trip. I wasn’t expecting anything other than colorful flowers and I was pleasantly surprised by the range {noticeable in the picture above}.

By the time we hit our last lunch spot in Santa Fe, it was difficult to imagine eating another bite. But when I saw linguini arrabiata on the Andiamo menu, I couldn’t resist. I finished the entire dish that I was convinced I barely had room for, all the while shocked at the diversity of the Santa Fe food scene.

Aside from all of the food and tourist attractions listed above, perhaps the most special aspect of Santa Fe is how ingrained diversity is in their history and culture. Hearing the following stories about Santa Fe’s history of Native Americans, religious collaboration, and strong women, I couldn’t help but to fall in love with the city even more.

• Surrounding areas of Santa Fe are home to Native American Pueblos, not reservations. Meaning, Native Americans still reside on their original land and were not forced to relocate.
• Abraham Staab, a wealthy, Jewish merchant whose grand home was later turned into the LaPosada Resort {pictured above},  helped fund the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi when construction halted due to lack of funds. As a thank you, the Cathedral has a Tetragrammation in Hebrew carved in the arch above the entrance.
• A powerful woman by the name of Maria Gertrudis “Tules” Barceló ,who made a fortune through gambling and prostitution, loaned funds to the U.S. Army during the Mexican/American War in 1846, leading to continued occupation of Santa Fe.

And after a very food-filled, culture-rich, information-dense few days, we put on stretchy pants and soaked up some nature at the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Park. We took in a bunch of deep breaths and said “See ya again soon, Santa Fe!”.

Disclosure: Although most of the businesses within this post kindly hosted our trip, the opinions in this post are completely my own and based on my experience.