A Mosaic Menu

Cuisines Comingle at Alkemē

By Nina Katz
Photos by Stephanie Cameron

I can’t remember the last time I heard the f-word in a restaurant setting. No, I don’t mean “foodie.” I’m talking about “fusion.” In the nineties, “fusion” was everywhere, emblazoning restaurants, menus, and cookbooks. It was a branding strategy that turned into a marketing cliché, and yet the term spoke to a long-standing part of the human experience—the comingling of different cuisines. Through trade routes, war, colonization, and immigration, globalization has authenticated the likes of potatoes in Irish stews and pancakes, American cheese atop Korean tteokbokki, and roasted green chile on a cheeseburger.

At Alkemē (pronounced “Alchemy”) at Open Kitchen in downtown Santa Fe, you’ll taste the melding and matching of Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Hawaiian Pacific Rim, but you won’t see the word “fusion” thrown around. So, what to call this restaurant that blends and spins a menu together?

Chef-owner Hue-Chan Karels and executive chef–general manager Erica Tai call it “culture-to-table.” A play on the well-loved “farm-to-table,” the phrase is Karels and Tai’s suggestion that it’s not just about where food is grown, but why. As the restaurant’s name suggests, Alkemē achieves their culture-to-table concept by bringing a dining experience to Santa Fe that’s “rooted in tradition, transformed by magic.”

“Maybe it’s just semantic, but once upon a time, the word ‘fusion’ was hot,” Karels says, reflecting on her long history in and around culinary spaces, as we chat, along with Tai, before a busy night of service. “Over time, [the term] took on a superficial meaning by people who weren’t using it with intention. Yes, the dishes at Alkemē are the fusing of two or three or even four different cultures and their flavors together, but we see it as transformation.” Alkemē has been making the intermix make sense in a modern context since they opened their doors in 2023.

Nearly fifty years earlier, on April 30, 1975, just a few days after Karels’s ninth birthday, Saigon fell, the Vietnam War ended, and one of the largest waves of Vietnamese immigrants took refuge across the United States. Karels and her family were a part of that migration, eventually landing in Michigan, where she spent the rest of her childhood. Karels has held her heritage close to her heart, particularly with the opening of her culinary events hub, Open Kitchen (first in Washington, DC, before she moved the operation to Santa Fe), and now Alkemē, occupying the same space.

Tai grew up in Taiwan, went to high school in Hawaii, and ended up in New Mexico for college. After studying culinary arts at Santa Fe Community College, Tai went on to gain a master of science in nutrition from the University of New Mexico.

“It’s destiny, I think, that brought me to New Mexico, because the traditions carried on here for hundreds of years inspire me to connect with my roots in Taiwan,” says Tai. Like Karels, she makes annual visits to her home country, where these days, she pays extra attention to how her grandmother prepares whole fish or garlic fermented in honey. “I am glad to be in a town where culture is so important.” Perhaps it was destiny, but practically, it was Tai’s aunt, a nun at a Taos monastery, who suggested she might like New Mexico. When I asked what her aunt does at the monastery, Tai’s answer, of course, is that she runs the kitchen.

“We see our lives mosaicked in our menu,” says Karels about what’s cooking at Alkemē. It’s not random that tuna poke, Taiwanese steamed gua bao buns, and Vietnamese rice crepes are all up for grabs. The fried butterflied branzino comes in a pool of sweet and sour sauce, which Tai explains as a transformation of canh chua cá (Vietnamese sweet and sour fish soup). Poke is served in golden spheres of pani puri (Indian fried hollow puffs). The bún chả Hà Nội (northern Vietnamese grilled pork and pork patties with rice noodles in a savory broth) is poured table side, one of Alkemē’s many fine dining moves, a nod to a robust fine dining scene in Ho Chi Minh City.

“There’s nothing wrong with opening a phở shop, but that’s not my life,” says Karels about her desire to showcase an elevated experience of Vietnamese food, and pan-Asian cuisine generally, that Americans are not as familiar with. South of Alkemē’s Santa Fe home base, Albuquerque is home to a larger enclave of Asian Americans, specifically Vietnamese, as well as a plethora of mom-and-pop phở and báhn mì cafés and restaurants. “We wanted to embark on a new, challenging journey.”

For those interested in embarking on a journey of their own, Karels leads one- to two-week culinary tours every November through northern and central Vietnam. These “Culinary Escapades” take patrons through major cities and rural farming communities, tasting foods from many generations of chefs. From the coconut groves of the Mê Kông Delta to the silk lantern–covered ceilings of Hội An, Karels looks forward to sharing her deep knowledge and love for her home country all year. Tai is also provided time to visit home as part of her position at Alkemē. “Going home reminds me that I need to slow down and connect with my roots. It allows me to better bring the flavors of Taiwan to Santa Fe.”

“We transport people,” says Karels. “For the time that they are eating here, they feel like they are away from Santa Fe for a little bit.” Sounds like a nice way to get out of town to me.

Alkemē, 227 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, 505-982-9704