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Santa Fe's venerable Pink Adobe has been reopened by members of the founder's family. (JOURNAL FILE)
The Pink Adobe has undergone changes since it first opened in 1944 under the direction of Rosalea Murphy. Priscilla Hoback — Murphy’s daughter — her son Joe Hoback and Jennifer Hoback are now in charge. Their management has brought a back-to-the-future menu reinvention. The 1960s-style rich, upscale food from The Pink’s classic past is back.
The lovely dining space evokes the spirit of a simpler Santa Fe with adobe, vigas, traditional New Mexican artwork and kiva fireplaces lined with white candles. The larger of the two main dining rooms has a bank of windows that look out onto Old Santa Fe Trail from behind lacy curtains. Customers commenting on foodie websites call the ambience “quaint and adorable.”
Now that spring is here, expect to see the patio open for business on warm days. The popular Dragon Room bar again offers free popcorn as well as an abbreviated menu for lunch or dinner.
At dinner, the menu features six starters, two dinner-size salads, 12 entrées and a handful of desserts. Some items reflect Murphy’s interest in New Orleans; four are New Mexican choices. From Clams Lucifer to the Pink’s classic apple pie, most of the food my friends and I enjoyed at the dinner spanned the decades gracefully.
I couldn’t eat some of the rich meals available here every day, but as a treat, the Pink is a treat.
We started with one of the best appetizers I’ve had anywhere, Clams Lucifer ($15). It featured more than a dozen tender, bite-size manila clams in the shell, covered in a great garlicky broth with the heat of red chile. The menu notes it also has “Mexican tequilla,” but the cooking took care of any alcohol taste. With the warm baguette (served with soft butter), these clams deserve a standing ovation. You can also order them as a dandy lunch or a bar snack.
We also liked our second appetizer, the shrimp remoulade, featuring half a dozen smallish shrimp topped with a mustardy creole dressing. We asked for extra lettuce on the bottom, and it made a fine little salad ($10). Remoulade, a French version of tartar sauce, seems to have gone out of fashion, and I enjoyed rediscovering it here.
As for entrées, Poulet Marengo, half a pan-roasted chicken finished with a great sauce, got a big thumbs up from my friends and me. The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender, and the Madeira/onion/tomato sauce sensational. This dish alone would inspire me to buy the Pink Adobe cookbook, subtly marketed at the hostess station.
I also liked the Tournedos Bordelaise, a small cooked-to-order sirloin served on a puff pastry shell, topped with a mushroom. The charm of this dish lies in the warm brown Bordelaise sauce — full-bodied, savory, rich and yummy. The sauce comes on the meat with extra on the side. The steak is served with tasty small whole potatoes, peeled and fried until the outsides were crunchy. If you want beef here, the menu also includes the Pink’s signature Steak Dunigan, a New York strip steak topped with mushrooms and green chile ($30).
The Enchilada Pink Adobe ($18) is a traditional cheese enchilada with plenty of cheese, blue corn tortillas, pinto beans, posole and a garnish of black olives. The red chile sauce was so scant that we asked for more. It’s not bad, but you can get as good or better for half the price elsewhere. Other New Mexican choices include a combination plate, chicken enchiladas and tamales.
Our lobster salad was unexceptional and expensive ($30). This had been one of my favorites, and I remembered it with more lobster and less lettuce. Previous lobster salads I’d enjoyed here had been cleverly assembled to resemble a chef’s impression of a lobster. This one placed pieces of chilled lobster meat between wedges of hardboiled egg and used arcs of tomato for “legs,” but lacked the black olive “eyes.” It required more imagination than I could muster to see a lobster on the plate and not just a fancy tossed salad.
Dessert, however, delighted me. The classic Pink Adobe apple pie with sweet rum sauce and a scoop of ice cream arrived warm and as delicious as ever. My friends and I were of mixed opinion on the chocolate mousse. One friend and I loved it; two said they thought it should be dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate (both $6).
Service was friendly and well-meaning but spotty, more like what you’d expect in an overly busy diner than at an upscale restaurant. We never received a soft drink and a glass of wine we ordered, and had to ask repeatedly for water and more bread. Our waitress did her best, but was responsible for several other tables and also serving as a buser. Her assistants seemed good-hearted but in need of training.
All in all, the Pink is off to a good restart. More professional service and lower prices would make this Santa Fe classic even more appealing. Our dinner of four entrées, two appetizers and two desserts was $140, without wine before tax and tip.
The Pink Adobe LOCATION: 406 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, 505-983-7712
