Many years ago, I worked at a Soho restaurant in New York City. One night, I observed the owner watching in frustration as employee after employee stepped over a dirty linen napkin that had fallen on the floor of the dining room in full view of the customers. No one took the time to pick it up. Servers, busboys, the maitre d' and the manager circumvented the offending cloth until, finally, the owner jumped up, grabbed it and fired a few employees. Clearly, that I-don't-give-a-damn attitude wasn't going to work in his restaurant.

Recently, a similar experience in a local establishment worried me. As I lunched on an outdoor terrace at a place that I happen to think serves amazing food, I noticed the salt shaker was tipped over on the next table. Three managers, two servers, a variety of bussers and the chef all stopped to talk to me — but not one of them noticed the overturned shaker and righted it.

Their lack of attention to detail spilled out onto the rest of the meal: courses were served without replacing silverware — my out-of-town guests finally stirred their coffee with dinner knives that had been left on the table after our main courses were cleared.

That same night, my party was greeted at a downtown restaurant with a scowl from the manager/host who clearly was not expecting a busy Monday night, was probably understaffed — despite the fact this is peak tourist season — and begrudgingly seated us at a cramped corner table. "I'll be with you when I can," he announced and stormed off. A young waitress with a similarly sour puss offered us water, but by this time I felt as if we had done something wrong by trying to give the long-established place our money.

The locations of these incidents are not important; I'm hoping the perpetrators of this lousy service will recognize themselves and get it together — or not. Of course there is terrific service in many, many restaurants here, but after a whole day of apologizing to guests from the East Coast who were surprised at the sloppiness of the service we received, it seems worth a mention.


I can still hear my Methodist grandmother saying, "Good things come from good people."

I'll add "Good food comes from good people" to that — a point driven home recently at an amazing tasting meal in the spanking new kitchen (the dining room wasn't finished yet) of the modern and elegant Encantado Resort in Tesuque.

It was only the second time the gleaming stoves and ovens had been fired up by executive chef Charles Dale and his talented staff, but if the meal I sampled that night is any indication of the things to come, the resort's restaurant, Terra, could be Santa Fe's next great restaurant.

Dale could not have been more affable. With a big generous smile and relaxed aplomb, he delighted in introducing our party of 10 guinea pigs — made up mostly of Encantado management and public relations folks — to his opening menu.

Over a leisurely sampling of dishes, each paired with wines selected by savvy food and beverage director Michel Darmon — who hails from the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group (Bouchon, Per Se) — I got genuinely excited about such goodies as lobster tortilla soup, grilled romaine Caesar, razor-thin slices of heirloom tomatoes with house-made mozzarella, pulled suckling pig on fluffy pancakes with spicy chipotle-hoisin sauce and, would you believe, seared foie gras with a cherry Coke sauce. That last dish was paired with a rich and moist confit of duck tamale and showed off perfectly the pedigree of Dale's cooking skills, as well as the whimsical side that gives him that twinkle in his eye.

Main courses and dessert continued with amazing creativity, my favorite being duo of lamb dishes that paired a date-basted rack of lamb with a tender "Rogan Josh" curried lamb shoulder with cucumber-mint raita.

The restaurant is now open (988-9955), and I can't wait to return to try the rest of the menu and sit in the handsome dining room that seems more Palm Springs than Santa Fe with nary a Kokopelli in sight. Congratulations to nice guy chef Dale and his staff on their opening — sometimes, nice guys do finish first.


As an adjunct to my column, The New Mexican Web site will offer Webcasts of cooking classes shot in my kitchen at the Las Cosas Cooking School. (The programs will be archived for three months.)

First up, on Aug. 20, with green-chile season in full swing, is a class on making chile rellenos that you won't want to miss. Access the fun at www.etastesantafe.com and watch for future videos, including guest chef visits and off-site food tours.

Starting today, you can catch glimpses of the last day of my annual kids summer cooking camp. This year, we challenged the kids to get creative with a mini Iron Chef competition with a secret ingredient. Log onto to www.etastesantafe.com to find out how they fared.