At Leo’s, a bid for longevity in Santa Fe’s restaurant industry

SANTA FE — What separates the transient restaurant, which closes seemingly as quickly as it opens, from eateries that become community fixtures for years and years?

That was the subject of discussion at table 2 on a mid-December evening inside Leo’s, a Thai-Malay restaurant that opened in August in a former auto garage and woodworking shop near Santa Fe’s Railyard District.

Amid the din of new-restaurant chatter, the thump of a hip-hop playlist and drinks featuring rum and mezcal, longtime Santa Fe tour guide Peter Weiss and former Taoseña Ali Silverstein chatted about what earns a restaurant the all-important, life-giving compliment of repeat business.

“I used to like going to Joseph’s Table in Taos,” Silverstein said, referring to a restaurant that once operated along N.M. 150 on the way to Taos Ski Valley but which relocated several years ago to Agua Fria Street. “I miss those restaurants, that kind of circuit of Sabroso’s, Sushi La Hattori, Pizanos, Joseph's Table — all corners of experience, from fancy to pizza.”

As the only New Mexico restaurant to be named to Esquire’s “Best New Restaurants in America” list this month, Leo’s has been off to a buzzy start since serving up its first spicy-savory takes on Southeast Asian cuisine this summer, giving a needed boost to an industry experts say has long needed a dash of inspiration.

In recent years, the question of what lends a restaurant staying power has taken on heightened importance for restaurateurs in New Mexico and across the country. Costs have risen sharply and wages have stagnated since the pandemic, leaving potential diners with less income to respond to another age-old debate: whether to eat out or play one’s best Emeril Lagasse over the stove at home.

Lines have been a regular sight outside Leo’s since its opening. Cars wedged along nearby streets lend the restaurant’s streamlined facade more the appearance of an ongoing neighborhood house party than one of the City Different’s most in-demand new spots to eat, belying the painstakingly thought-out operation inside.

The venture brings together a lineup of longtime food aficionados — Zakary Pelaccio, a James Beard Award-winning chef; Jonathan Boyd, an expert designer and woodworker who furnished the space; and Ian Wolff, who brings decades of restaurant experience to Leo’s bar.

Directing traffic in Leo’s close-quarters kitchen is 24-year-old Stella Achenbach, who spent her childhood between Taos and New York. Esquire described Achenbach as “a wildly talented first-timer.” Pelaccio, who also runs the Esquire-listed Corner Office in Taos, went further when describing the young chef.

“Stella is a 24-year-old prodigy, really,” Pelaccio said of Achenbach. “I’ve worked with a lot of cooks, and there’s a lot of talented 24-year-old cooks. But not chefs. She has the ability to run a kitchen, to organize ordering, to keep her cool in the middle of the storm, to manage people and also execute delicious food.”

Leo’s is named for the building’s former owner, Leo CdeBaca, who ran a gas station and auto shop there from the 1950s until 2015, when Boyd converted it into the home of his woodworking business, Boyd & Allister furniture studio.

Boyd started mulling over converting the building yet again — into a restaurant — and asked Pelaccio to come see the space. From there, a shared vision for bringing the tastes of Southeast Asia to Santa Fe began to form, culminating in what Boyd summarized as “a commitment to quality from top to bottom, whether it be making the stools we sit on in the restaurant or sourcing for a dish.”

Other partners followed, along with a seasoned crew of wait staff and floor managers, such as Liza Bambenek, who has worked as a camera operator for the Santa Fe film industry on films like “Sicario” and “No Country for Old Men,” as well as the AMC show “Dark Winds.”

“There’s a lot of overlap,” she said while directing servers during Saturday’s dinner service. “Before I was a camera operator, I was a camera assistant, and all of those little tasks that we do are similar. Things are a little slow right now, so I’m over here. There’s a good swirl of people.”

With all the hype and the splash of an early accolade, Leo’s was predictably packed during a mid-December weekend. Diners occupied every stool at the bar and filled all three communal tables crafted by Boyd himself as part of a design meant to spur socializing with fellow diners while leaving sufficient shoulder room for an intimate night out.

Boyd, Pelaccio and Achenbach have all traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and share an affinity for the region’s multifarious foods. But where some restaurants aim for variety, they said Leo’s goal is consistency, across-the-board quality and cohesiveness, all with the goal of keeping diners coming back.

Influencing each turn in Weiss’ and Silverstein’s conversation were pauses for family-style bites from Leo’s menu — brothy blistered collards, crab nam prik in steamed custard with chili oil, piquant head-on catfish and house-made rice noodles cooked to carry a slight crunch. Soon, several dishes had blended into one on their plates, which Achenbach said is what’s meant to happen at Leo’s.

“My least favorite thing is going into a restaurant and being like, ‘I don’t know what to order,’” Achenbach said of the menu, which she designed with Pelaccio. “Our original jumping off point was that we wanted everything to go really well together. This style of food from this part of the world is best enjoyed with a bunch of people, and having a bunch of different flavors on the table and getting to enjoy it all together.”

Boyd said their goal of creating a harmonious experience extends to Leo’s interior, which he built by hand primarily out of white oak and walnut. Aside from the multicolored neon sign of an elephant that greets guests in the restaurant’s foyer, the only other art to be seen inside is Boyd’s worn worktable, hung on a wall above where Weiss and Silverstein ate.

“It’s just an ethos about approaching making objects, food, beautiful things, beautiful spaces,” Boyd said. “There’s a bit of an unknown that comes into that, which is a personal touch as well as just a dedication to doing things well in a time-honored tradition.”

With many decades of combined experience in the industry, however, the Leo’s owners all know that time is the only true test of a restaurant, especially amid a challenging economic landscape.

Food and beverage costs rose 29% from 2019 through last year in the U.S., and labor costs had increased 31% over the same period, according to the National Restaurant Association.

In 2023, New Mexico had slightly fewer restaurants registered than it did in 2017. 

Starting a new restaurant is a notoriously onerous process, filled with permitting and regulations that deter many would-be eateries from ever getting off the ground, said Carol Wight, CEO of the New Mexico Restaurant Association.

“It’s so hard these days,” Wight said. “Bosque Brewing just shut down two of (its) locations. We’ve had a lot of shrinkage. A lot of restaurants are no longer open seven days a week, or they’re not open for dinner. Everything’s so expensive.”

Real wage growth, measured as a change in workers’ purchasing power relative to inflation, has been stagnant for decades, according to the Pew Research Center.

Entertainment expenses — including dining out — are often among the first cuts people make when tightening their belts.

“I think people are most concerned with what they can afford at the moment and what’s exciting,” Pelaccio said. “It’s gone way past the point of necessity to being entertainment. But people want to be entertained. They want to be fed.”

Wight did reference some bright spots for the state’s restaurant industry, including the debut of Michelin Guide Southwest, which encompasses Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, making restaurants in the Land of Enchantment eligible for the fabled restaurant review.

For now, Pelaccio said he and his partners plan to stay focused on an experience that has garnered a boisterous early response, with a roadmap that includes opening a backyard patio to expand dining space and future iterations of the current menu.

As for the future, Pelaccio expressed cautious optimism: “Sit tight,” he said, with a laugh. “We’ll see. Hopefully the wheels don’t come off this. It’s a day-to-day business.”

At least for two Santa Fe foodies who know what they like, Weiss and Silverstein said they plan on coming back to Leo’s. Next time, they plan to find a seat at the bar.

“It’s hopeful for everyone to have something interesting happening like this,” Silverstein said. “Having people who are really trying to reinvigorate the food culture here is exciting.”

John Miller is the northern New Mexico correspondent for the Journal. You can reach him at jmiller@abqjournal.com.