The Santa Fe Restaurant I Couldn't Stop Going Back To — Cafe Pasqual's, by Chef Alyssa Ross

I didn't know Cafe Pasqual's was famous when I walked in.

It was my first night in Santa Fe, and I was alone. My friends and family weren't arriving until the next day, so I wandered into town looking for somewhere to have dinner and ended up at Pasqual's.

I asked for a table for one.

They told me they could seat me at the community table and asked if I was okay with that.

Of course.

I took my seat among people I had never met, said hi to everyone at the table, and before long started talking with the people around me about what they had ordered as I saw some of their plates coming to the table. There were travelers from different parts of the country, a couple of Santa Fe locals, and new people joining the table as others finished their meals.

What started as dinner alone slowly became dinner together.

We traded stories about where we were from and what had brought us to Santa Fe. Conversations crossed from one end of the table to the other. By the end of the night, we were passing desserts around for one another to try and welcoming each new group of strangers to the table as though we'd all arrived together.

It was one of those travel moments you could never really plan.

I had walked into a restaurant by myself without knowing much about it and walked out feeling like I'd just shared dinner with a table full of friends.

And I couldn't wait to go back.

So I Did. Again and Again.

The next day, I brought my Mom and my friend.

By the time I left Santa Fe, I had eaten at Pasqual's four times, working my way through different dishes and experiencing the restaurant at different times of day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Somehow it worked for all three.

That first dinner may have been what made me fall in love with the place, but the food kept bringing me back.

Pasqual's has the kind of menu that makes you immediately start looking at what everyone else ordered. The food is colorful, generous, and rooted in the flavors of the Southwest, with an emphasis on organic ingredients.

And because I kept returning, I got to experience something I love about traveling: watching a restaurant change throughout the day.

Morning at Pasqual's feels different from dinner. The plates change. The crowd changes. The energy changes. But the warmth of the place doesn't.

There is something particularly wonderful about finding a restaurant while traveling that becomes your place, even if only for a few days.

More Than a Meal

There are restaurants you remember because you ate something extraordinary.

There are others you remember because of how you felt while you were there.

Pasqual's became both for me.

I loved the food enough to eat there every day I was in Santa Fe, but when I think about the restaurant now, the first thing I remember isn't a particular dish.

It's that table.

It's arriving in Santa Fe alone and sitting down next to strangers. It's hearing stories from locals and travelers. It's passing dessert across the table. It's watching new people sit down and immediately become part of the conversation.

Food has a funny way of doing that.

We can arrive as strangers, order completely different things, come from completely different places, and somehow end up sharing a table.

Maybe that's why I returned to Pasqual's four times.

The food was incredible.

But that first night gave me something I wasn't expecting.

It made Santa Fe feel welcoming before my vacation had really even begun.

And sometimes, the places we remember most aren't the ones we planned to find.

They're the ones we simply stumbled into not knowing how memorable it would become.