La Boca Is a Santa Fe Staple
By Candolin Cook ∙ Photos by Douglas Merriam
I have an embarrassing admission. Until a week ago, I—a semi-professional food writer, longtime New Mexico resident, and lover of all things delicious—had never eaten at La Boca. What was I thinking? Modern Spanish cuisine? Incredible. Sharing tapas so you can try more dishes? Essential. European-style ambience and live flamenco guitar? Muy romántico. Multiple James Beard Awards nominations? Irresistible! Fortunately, it seems that my oversight is not common. For many Santa Feans and repeat visitors to the City Different, dining at La Boca is somewhat of a ritual.
“I have a lot of gratitude that people have supported us for so long,” La Boca chef-owner James Campbell Caruso tells me on my second visit, which happens to be his restaurant’s seventeenth anniversary. “Our customers always like to tell me how long [they’ve been coming in]. Or remind me that we catered their wedding or that it’s their anniversary.” He says their loyalty was especially appreciated during the pandemic: “We had the same people ordering takeout every week. It confirmed that we had a lot of love and support from our community. It was a beautiful thing.”
Caruso and I are seated in La Boca’s intimate dining room, which has a European feel thanks to its small size, rustic brick floors, wood beams, and cozy bar. Adding to its continental vibe is a front patio lined with flower boxes that spills onto picturesque Marcy Street. The chef says he was inspired to create La Boca in 2006, in part, because this particular downtown location had become available. “The space looked like it could be in Madrid,” he says affectionately. Caruso is of Italian heritage but developed a passion for Spanish cuisine and culture while working as the executive chef for El Farol (1999–2006) and by eating and drinking his way around Spain on multiple visits. He says he fell in love with the country’s robust sherry culture (more on that later) and its experiential approach to food. “I decided to open a Spanish-inspired restaurant here partly because Santa Fe, obviously, has a strong connection to Spain. But what I really wanted to do is bring that energy that sharing tapas creates. Sharing and talking about the food . . . the food itself almost doesn’t even matter. The experience is what matters.”
Left: Boquerones. Right: Morcilla Pintxos with roasted piquillo peppers, roasted garlic aioli, and piparra.
To La Boca’s devoted fans, of course, the food does matter. Caruso’s menu of entrées and shareables changes frequently to showcase local produce and purveyors (recent specials included a Dixon Musk Melon Carpaccio with local goat cheese and an Abiquiú Lamb’s Tongue served with sweet corn–saffron salsa, sunchoke puree, and morcilla chicharrones). But he says there are some items that have to “stay put or I’ll get death threats at the grocery store.” Such classics include the crispy Patatas Bravas (currently with Romero Farms fingerling potatoes, spicy sherry vinegar, minced garlic, and roasted garlic aioli), the Gâteau Basque (vanilla bean cream tart with house-brandied cherries and crème fraîche), and the small plate bound to be my new happy hour go-to, Boquerones (anchovy fillets marinated in vinegar and neatly nestled in olive oil) served with pan con tomate (toasted bread brushed with garlic and topped with grated fresh tomato and olive oil).
For the restaurant’s weeklong anniversary menu in September, the chef and his staff offered several specials, each with a suggested sherry pairing. The light minerality of Herederos de Argueso’s San León Manzanilla sherry, for example, nicely cut through the fat and richness of the Croquetas de Jamón (perfectly breaded and fried nuggets of jamón serrano and creamy béchamel). Caruso considers himself an ambassador of sherry, a fortified wine that is exclusively produced in the “Sherry Triangle” region of southern Spain. “Some [Americans] think of sherries as being sweet, but that is probably just 4 percent. There are so many styles—dry, complex, savory.” Two years ago, La Boca hired a sommelier, Jesus Rodriguez, and expanded their sherry selection to include several on tap. The chef boasts, “You will not find a sherry list like this outside of Spain.”
La Boca’s intimate dining room.
Over the years, La Boca’s popularity and small space made a second dining room and bar necessary. In 2013, Taberna opened just around the corner in the courtyard at Lincoln Avenue and Marcy Street. La Boca and Taberna now share a kitchen, but the latter has a larger dining room, bar, patio, and stage for performances of classical and flamenco guitar. Slurping black mussels in coconut broth while watching acclaimed musicians like Jose Valle “Chuscales” feverishly pluck his guitar strings has become its own weekly tradition for local food and music lovers.
Last year, Caruso further extended his culinary empire to include a bodega and café next to La Boca. “People were always asking us where we sourced our [imported] ingredients; now they can buy them here.” La Boca Bodega was in the middle of a remodel on my visit, but Caruso was looking forward to restocking its shelves soon with specialty olives, cheeses, cured meats, and spices, as well as providing fresh pastries, coffee, and a cold case with premade sandwiches and other grab-and-go options for hungry Santa Feans on the move.
For all his success, the celebrated chef-owner clearly hasn’t lost sight of the community that has supported him all these years, and he continues to strive to serve them and their evolving needs. “I genuinely care about our diners and their happiness,” he says. “When people sit down to dinner, it is the most intimate of rituals. . . . We like being part of that.”
72 W Marcy, 505-982-3433, Santa Fe, labocasantafe.com
Candolin Cook is a historian, writer, editor, and former co-editor of edible New Mexico. She recently received her doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico and is working on her first book.
