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By "new and interesting food" do you mean New Mexican cuisine ... or other kinds?
Completely clueless on New Mexican cuisine. I live in northern california, I am sure our mexican is a bit different. But anything pretty unique new mexican or a really good example of something else if we are sick of new mexican.
I can get almost anything at home, so no need to find italian or a steakhouse or burgers... chain restaurants....
There are dozens of excellent traditional New Mexican restaurants in Santa Fe, but I don't eat in the Plaza area, so maybe someone else can suggest some good places.
I guess the closest of my favorite New Mexican rstaurants to the Plaza would be La Choza or Guadalupe Cafe, but I am not sure they would be in walkihg distance for you.
I do love The Burrito Cafe Co. -- that is on the Plaza, but is a pretty casual lunch place.
Many people llike The Shed (sister restaurant to La Choza) and it is on the Plaza, but to me it is not really a favorite -- I find it overrated and touristy, but others might suggest it.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Eat at Tia Sophia's for breakfast. You can get New Mexican style breakfast like Huevos Rancheros with green or red chile sauce, breakfast burritos are very good there, sopapillas with honey and two blocks from the plaza.
Tomasitas is a pretty good spot for New Mexican lunch, seems to be popular with locals and tourists alike. Cowgirl BBQ is another hit (Cowgirl BBQ | Santa Fe, NM).
I also remember there being a great French bakery and pastry shop (good coffee) near the cathedral.
Get a museum pass. It's one reasonable price and gets you admitted to four museums in Santa Fe (visit two and you already have your money's worth) including the Palace of the governors (NM museum of history), museum of international folk art, and NM museum of art. It's good for four days and if you happen to be spending any time in Albuquerque it's good for a few museums down there too. https://secure.museumofnewmexico.org...ulturepass.php
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 01-11-2012 at 04:08 AM..
I'll echo some of the suggestions already made. Upstairs at the New Mexico History Museum is a really nice temporary exhibit on "Contemplative Landscape", "a photographic exploration of how people have responded to and interacted with New Mexico’s landscape through art, architecture and sacred rituals." In the center of the exhibit hall is a meditation space circled by walls, with benches to sit on and a rock fountain in the center. The exhibit shares the space with the St. John's Bible, a contemporary illuminated manuscript which is an amazing work of art and calligraphy in its own right.
I also agree the French cafe and bakery at La Fonda, near the Cathedral, is very good, you can enter it off of San Francisco St. The La Plazuela Restaurant inside La Fonda is also good and a colorful place. Visitors I have taken there have all enjoyed it. The Shed on Palace Ave. is intensely popular for New Mexican food, and gets very crowded. If you like used/antiquarian bookstores, Nicholas Potter is just down the street on Palace. I also like Tia Sophia's for basic New Mexican food. At the corner of Burro Alley and San Francisco (across from the Lensic Theater) is another restaurant that is a hybrid of New Mexican and French (absorbed the nearby Paris bakery/cafe that closed), the name escapes me, it has changed hands a few times recently.
The whole area around the Plaza is chock full of different kinds of restaurants, you can just stroll around and look at the posted menus and decide what appeals to you. Making your own "discovery" should be part of the experience.
And if you like a piano bar check out Vanessie, a couple of blocks west on San Francisco St.
If you can get to Ten Thousand Waves (which has been called the most authentic Japanese spa in North America) you should definitely go for a soak in one of their hot tubs. It is several miles from downtown however, on the way to the ski area.
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