A pinch of New Mexico with a dash of global flair: Chef Gilbert Aragon mixes flavors from his heritage with worldly ingredients

Editor’s note: Cocina Connection is a once-a-month feature that takes a behind-the-scenes look at a New Mexico-based chef, who, in turn, shares some recipes.

It has been a labor of love for Chef Gilbert Aragon, who has worked up the ranks to open a new restaurant with the hospitality chain where it all began.

His story begins 16 years ago as a sous chef at Hotel Albuquerque, which is owned by Heritage Hotels and Resorts. He would later become executive chef at the hotel and would branch out to open and oversee various Heritage restaurants.

As a regional chef with Heritage, he opened Level 5 at Hotel Chaco in Albuquerque’s Sawmill District. He eventually moved up to corporate chef and ran Eldorado Hotel & Spa and the Inn & Spa at Loretto, both in Santa Fe.

“When the pandemic hit, things changed a bit and I started my own company,” Aragon said. “I partnered up with Heritage and created a company where I did all their catering contracts and I rebooted the hotels after the pandemic.”

Aragon, most recently ran Roti NM Rotisserie Kitchen at the Sawmill Market.

“I had that for a little over two years, and that was a cool experience in a modern food hall and putting out amazing food there,” he said of Roti.

A phone conversation with Jim Long, CEO of Heritage Hotels & Resorts, Heritage Restaurant Group, and Adrian Perez, president of the Heritage group, would change Aragon’s life and help him reach his dream of opening a restaurant in Santa Fe.

“They told me about this grand opportunity here at Hotel St. Francis and I just really could not pass it up,” Aragon said. “Santa Fe, for a chef, is for me anyway as a New Mexican, it’s like my Mecca. It’s the place I always wanted to have a restaurant and be part of that scene because there’s just so much history here and so much prestige with chefs and restaurants. And I wanted to be part of that circle for many years.”

Aragon recently opened Wolf and Roadrunner inside Hotel St. Francis, 210 Don Gaspar Ave., in Santa Fe. The restaurant is open 5-9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Menus are available at hotelstfrancis.com/eat_drink/wolf_and_roadrunner.

“We are so fortunate that we are going to be at the Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe,” Aragon said. “It is just one of the most amazing iconic hotels. It’s so romantic and beautiful.”

Wolf and Roadrunner is a steak and game-centered restaurant that features a traditional steakhouse-style menu that integrates international flavors .

“It’s an opportunity for me to showcase flavors from around the globe,” Aragon said. “One thing that’s going to be very unique to us is that we’re going to be cooking over an Argentine grill. We’re going to be using pecan wood and oak wood to cook our meats and our game over.”

Aragon chose pecan wood because of its ties to the Land of Enchantment.

“One, it’s native to New Mexico so I can get it pretty easily,” he said. “And two, I think it has a softer smoke for me. I think when I mix the oak and the pecan, it’s a great mixture of a little bit hard-hitting smoke with a little bit softer smoke. It’s not so powerful.”

Aragon said many of the recipes include wild herbs and use techniques that go back to some of the original ways of doing things such as baking in clay and using coals to roast potatoes and things of that nature.

“We’re kind of modernizing some old techniques and kind of putting ourselves in a place to be very unique in the sense that our flavors are going to be very bold, they’re going to represent the globe. There’s flavors from the Mediterranean, North African, Spanish, Mexican, Native American influences. There’s just kind of this really cool mélange of ideas and recipes that I’ve kind of been able to accumulate through my career.”

Aragon said he has had the fortune to spend time in Spain, Colombia and Mexico and has been blessed to be surrounded by amazing flavors.

“It was my opportunity to do a restaurant that kind of spoke a little bit about what I am and what I love, and how I approach food and really just take care of it from the dirt up,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming, honestly, to do this project. And we’re just excited to make great food and great flavors on the plate.”

Aragon’s approach to food was partly inspired by his mentor, Chef Mark Miller, who opened the famous Coyote Cafe in 1987 in Santa Fe.

“He’s a great chef, historian and food anthropologist,” Aragon said of Miller. “Coyote Cafe was his first restaurant in Santa Fe, and he and I really took a deep dive into the old traditional techniques and really how to bring that into a modern restaurant setting and bring some of those flavors that New Mexico’s extremely fortunate to have, these cultures and traditions that we grew up with.”

Growing up surrounded by farming also contributed to Aragon’s culinary signature. His grandparents grew up in Roy, New Mexico, where ranching and farming are a way of life.

Being a native New Mexican, Aragon said he was surrounded by food. He has fond memories of making tortillas with his grandmother and learning how to garden and grow tomatoes with his grandfather .

“I guess it’s in my blood,” he said. “It’s who I am. It’s the type of food I enjoy to cook. I love cooking over open fire. I love the flavor that you can get from smoke, I love just that naturalness of food but put in a modern setting.”

Wolf and Roadrunner’s initial menu focuses on spices — not particularly meant to sting your tongue but to create bold and bright flavors. Aragon said there are about 10 different chilies in the restaurant’s kitchen, including chilaca negro chilies, Nora chilies from Spain and Calabrian chilies.

“Not only do we use chile here in New Mexico, but around the globe, and it’s just interesting how other cultures use chilies or how they impart them by pickling them or drying them or smoking them,” Aragon said. “And so really, this was an opportunity for me to just be bold with flavor, be bold with my menu and to stay around a steakhouse-centered menu.”

Aragon aims to create a menu that represents different cultures.

“We’re making a beautiful naan bread that we’re going to do with sourdough,” he said. “And it comes with this great Merguez sausage, which is a North African-style sausage from Spain. It’s with lamb. We’re making a schug sauce, which is this great Mediterranean cilantro sauce that goes with this beautiful onion salad. It’s a really nice mixture of Mediterranean.”

As an ode to Spain, Aragon has added a tapa dish of great prawns with chorizo, butter, garlic and bread.

“It’s this really great tapa dish that I had when I was in Seville, Spain,” he said. “And this reminds me of that time when I was there.”

Argon said he wants to take a contemporary approach on how he runs Wolf and Roadrunner.

“I’m going to be 40 years old and have a little bit different take on the way I run the restaurant and the approach I want to (take),” he said. “Kind of be a little more hipper and a little more modern and kind of stick around the traditions that are around here, just kind of be myself here.”

Piñon (Pignoli) Cookies

2 cups pine nuts

1 ½ cup powdered sugar

¼ cup almond paste

1 teaspoon orange extract

¼ teaspoon, finely chopped rosemary

1 egg

1 orange zested

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

¼ -teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Process ¾ cup of the pine nuts, sugar, almond paste, orange extract and rosemary, until fine crumbs form. Add the egg, pulse and add the orange zest, flour, baking powder and salt until a dough forms.

Roll the dough into ½ inch balls, place a few pine nuts on top to decorate. Place on a baking sheet spaced 2 inches apart and bake for 20 minutes. The recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.