Top-notch food that you can afford

Marvelous is the word that comes to mind when I think of a recent dinner at Café Café

Under new ownership for about a year now, this restaurant, which was good in a laid-back sort of way before, is better than ever. Every dish my friends and I had was first-rate. This beautiful little place offers some of Santa Fe’s – and New Mexico’s – best Italian food. With nightly specials in addition to the ample selection of entrees and pizzas on the menu and house-made desserts, Café Café somehow manages to serve four-star food at three-star prices.

Three dinner companions and I started with some of the tastiest calamari I’ve ever eaten. This was a “popcorn” style, light and crisp with a nice saltiness to it from the herb semolina coating. The appetizer came in a deep basket with three dipping sauces – warm garlic butter, tarter, and warm, light marinara. The serving was plenty for the four of us. It smelled wonderful and arrived piping hot ($10.50).

	Café Café WHERE: 500 Sandoval St., Santa Fe, 505-989-1730 HOURS: Lunch 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Dinner 5-9 p.m. daily. AMBIANCE: Welcoming with a touch of class. SERVICE: Good FOOD: Italian. Beer and wine available.

For something more unusual, and a better test of the kitchen’s creativity, we tried the grilled eggplant rolls. Thin slices of eggplant enclosed a mild filling of spaghetti squash. The rolls were grilled, and topped with freshly made marinara. This light starter was easy to share, too, because it came as an order of four.

Pizza anyone? Café Café offers nine specialties in three sizes. Or, you can concoct your own, selecting from more than 20 toppings ranging from artichoke hearts to prosciutto to add to a cheese pizza base. We tried one of Cafe Cafe’s trademark creations, the Italian meat pizza ($15.50 for a 12 inch). It was a fragrant, beautiful extravaganza of Canadian bacon, pepperoni, salami, Italian sausage and plenty of melted mozzarella cheese on a thin, crisp crust. The waitress gave it its own table side stand. Yummy – and plenty for the next day too.

Café Café makes its own pasta and I would say the results are well worth the effort in the kitchen. You can taste the fresh difference. The lasagna noodles, penne pasta tubes and long cannelloni shells were tender. Each style we tried was well-matched to the sauce or filling that came with them. The lasagna sheets and cannelloni were soft comfort food, the penne more al dente and robust.

I loved the day’s special entree, green chile buffalo lasagna ($21). This robust dish seemed perfectly designed for a cool evening, and the generous serving would have been plenty for a hungry teenager. The leftovers tasted great the next day. The LaMont’s Buffalo meat, cooked into the nicely seasoned tomato sauce, added a bit more depth than the standard ground beef or sausage mixture. And to my delighted surprise, the green chile worked, too. This probably isn’t your grandma’s lasagna unless she was a master chef with a flair for the unexpected, but we all enjoyed it. My friend who ordered it and happily shared, pointed out that the presentation was unusual, too. It almost looked as though the noodles had been layered onto the plate just for her.

The cannelloni ($19) was wonderful, too, and a very different type of pasta dish. Comparing it to the lasagna is like comparing a Lexus SUV to a Ferrari. The two pasta tubes came stuffed with a mixture of ground veal and spinach, baked in a classic oval bowl with a Béchamel sauce and a bit of the fresh tomato marinara. Again, the flavors worked perfectly together. This time, the serving size was moderate, too.

Another choice from the pasta menu, the penne with mushrooms ($17), was a meal for two, maybe more, served in a big white bowl. I loved the smoked cherry tomato sauce, slightly creamy with a touch of sweetness. The chef piled the thinly sliced sautéed mushrooms, topped with a confetti of fresh basil and shredded Parmesan cheese, in the center. The noodles and sauce surrounding them like a halo and the presentation enhanced our enjoyment of the dish. There was plenty to share and to enjoy as a second meal.

For dessert, we tried a scoop of the flavorful homemade vanilla bean gelato ($2.50) and a slice of an amazing house-made spumoni ($10). The three traditional ice cream flavors – cherry, pistachio and chocolate – were topped with roasted hazelnuts, crisp tart orange peel and beautiful Amarena cherries imported from Italy. Each ice cream, made in-house, had its own special character. Together, they were a treat for the eyes and the palate.

The dining room features colorful floral paintings by artist Dominique Boisjoli, the wife of owner Steward Dixon. The mellow lighting reflects the same devotion to detail reflected in the food. It is relaxing but bright enough to read the menu without a flashlight. Service was good. If you can’t park in the lot right outside the restaurant, there are street side spaces nearby. Café Café is a short walk from the Plaza or the Railyard.