Editor Pick
El Farol
- June 13, 2006
- Rated 5 of 5 by
beckilena from Denver, Colorado
El Farol (the lantern) is located on Santa Fe's artsy Canyon Road. This winding up sloped road leads you through some amazing galleries and up towards the top, some amazing food. El Farol is a tapas restaurant with a great front street side patio that is open in the summer months. They offer 35 different types of tapas, which if you are like me and have never experienced tapas before, they are like mini meals. The menu also offers some full sized meals but I recommend sharing two or three tapas with another person. My mother and I had never experienced tapas before so we let our waitress choose our food, which seemed to be the best way to go. We had the chicken curry salad with grapes, fried artichoke, pasta with clams, halibut and shrimp, and made sure to save room for dessert...might I suggest the pound cake served in a cream coconut sauce with shaved lime skin on top...delicious. The prices for tapas range from $4.50 to $12, so although it seems pricey you can get away with only getting three for two people along with the complementary bread served. Main courses for lunch run between $8 and $15, while prices soar to $26 to $32 for dinner entrées. So my suggestion is to stick with the tapas and try a little bit of everything. They have live entertainment 7 days a week in the indoor bar area. This can range anywhere from jazz and swing to Latin guitar music, typically starting at around 9:30 nightly.
From journal Weekend Excursion in Santa Fe
Editor Pick
El Farol
- March 28, 2002
- Rated 3 of 5 by
Peregrine from , New Mexico
El Farol is noted for its tapas and its music. Located on the upper end of Canyon Road, it has a long porch where you can sit and people watch in warm weather. If you want a little more quiet, there is a patio in the back and a room with windows that open onto the patio, as well as two small dining rooms. It also has a public parking area right across the street, making life a whole lot easier for those of us with cars.
Its open for lunch and dinner, but its claim to fame, other than the tapas, it its rep as an upscale local nightspot – for upscale you can insert expensive. You can get a regular meal or order hot or cold tapas. I had the one of the tapas sampler platters, a selection of offerings from the tapas menu, and while it was good, it wasn’t fantastic. The price at $9.50 wasn’t out of line, but it was the same price as a glass of wine!
Music ranges from flamenco to R&B with a little country, blues, and Latin thrown in, and you can get a monthly calendar of who is playing when. The music is performed live in the bar, a long, dark affair with a miniscule stage that doesn’t look strong enough to support the players. I’ve been there for Flamenco night (Wednesday). The drumming of feet and castinets and the rhythm of the guitars amid swirling skirts certainly gets the blood flowing. However, the waitress told me the weekends "really rock." The talent is local, like most of the patrons, and it does get crowded so if you go, go early to get a seat.
From journal The City Different