Amuse-bouche New vegetarian joints
Santa Fe has a reputation for being a relatively wholesome community — one with an eye toward exercise, yoga, and healthful cuisine. While we’re far from having veggie-centric restaurants on every corner, the options for vegetarians and vegans (and their gluten-free compatriots) have slowly increased since 2016, when an online source declared our city the most vegetarian-friendly municipality in the U.S.
At the Santa Fe Oxygen and Healing Bar (133 W. San Francisco St., 505-986-5037), my bowl runneth over with vegetarian pho ($12). This is precisely the kind of food that makes you feel virtuous just for eating it. Available in vegan and bone-broth-based versions, it’s heavily laden with nontraditional (but still delicious) semi-translucent sweet-potato noodles, various leafy greens, sugar snap peas that live up to their name, firm and earthy mushroom slices, and tofu, the spongy quality of which is particularly well suited to aromatic brothy dishes like this one. The vegan base is comparatively lean, but it fills your I mouth with a delightful lemongrass-redolent zing, particularly if you augment it with the hot sauce offered alongside your bowl.
Dishes here range from the more predictable salads to regionally inspired choices like tamales and a vegan Frito pie ($11). The latter is loaded with calabacitas, Anasazi beans, shredded vegan cheese, and a generous garnish of chopped lettuce and cilantro. Jackfruit, which has gained popularity lately as a stand-in for meat, has a texture that recalls chicken or pork, although if you catch any of its sour fruity aftertaste through the slathering of mild but nicely bitter Chimayó red chile sauce, your brain won’t be completely tricked. Don’t fret if you’ve brought along a meat-loving dining companion, as beef and seafood make cameos (mostly as add-ons), and one of the gluten-free pizzas is topped with pepperoni.
The Oxygen Bar features three of those innovative pies, which start with a yucca-based crust. We sampled the Mediterranean ($12), which our server proclaimed was her favorite. The menu rightly describes the house tomato sauce as “zesty,” and the toppings — black olives, feta cheese, artichoke hearts, scallions, and heady oregano — are mountainously generous. The crust holds together nicely and has a pleasantly chewy quality. You won’t mistake it for actual wheat-based crust, but you can close your eyes and suspend disbelief for a minute.