Traditional Tapas Infused
with a Southwestern Flair

Aromatic garlic and paprika, onions and pungent olives, Manchego cheese - these ingredients are hallmarks of traditional Spanish cuisine. Spain is celebrated not only for these bold flavors, but also for tapas, small portions of hot or cold food meant to accompany a glass of wine, sherry or beer. 

What happens when the extraordinary flavors of Spain are married to the unique flavors of Latin America and the American Southwest? Chef Caruso himself describes his style of cooking as a "Latino-Mediterranean blend."

Caldo Pescado

Caruso was born in Boston and raised on the Basque and Italian cooking of his grandmother and mother.  "They started teaching me to cook when I was a kid and never kicked me out of the kitchen," he said. "When I was 9 or 10, my grandmother predicted that I was going to be a chef. I just figured everybody knew how to cook because everybody around me cooked. I didn't think of it as a profession, per se."

Caruso moved to New Mexico when he was 25 to study anthropology at the University of New Mexico. His anthropological training and love of cooking led him to explore the origins of Spanish cuisine and the different cultures that have influenced Spanish food. Through experience, research, and cooking tours of Mexico and Spain (including stints in Seville and Jerez de la Frontera), James has been able to combine his love of cultures and food to create a unique cuisine that brings together the best of traditional and contemporary foods of Spanish-speaking countries.

During his studies, he supported himself by working as a chef at Mimmo's, the Second Street Grill and Scalo's, where he met his wife, Leslie, who was the pastry chef. "We both liked being chefs so much that we decided to pursue it together." Caruso gave up anthropology and got married in 1992. 

In 1996, the couple moved to Santa Fe, where Caruso was the sous-chef at La Casa Sena, a Southwestern fusion restaurant. Three years later, he became executive chef at El Farol. "I got to create new menus all the time, and that's where I started developing my own style, a Latino-Mediterranean blend," he said.

His wife is a culinary instructor heading the bakery and pastry department of the Santa Fe Community College's culinary program. She also helps Caruso design desserts for El Farol. "We're training one of her pastry students who works part time in the kitchen at El Farol," he said.

Caruso himself has been a part-time teacher for six years at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, where he focuses on Southwest and Mexican cuisine, and tapas. He is now outlining a second book on modern Mediterranean food.

Caruso still considers himself something of an anthropologist. After all, anthropology is the study of man and culture. "In a sense, I'm still doing that, only now I'm focusing on the foods of particular cultures." He also co-hosts, with El Farol owner David Salazar, the popular radio talk show "El Sabor de Santa Fe" on Santa Fe public radio station KSFR.

El Farol in Santa Fe is more than a restaurant. It is a piece of history, located among the galleries and shops of Canyon Road, has been some sort of dining establishment and watering hole since 1835, says David Salazar, who has owned it for the last two decades.

It was even purported to have been a house of ill repute at one time, he said. In the 1920s and '30s, it became a gathering place for the bohemian crowd -- artists, musicians, poets, flamenco dancers.

The menu at El Farol reads like a travelogue: chipotle chile from Mexico, dulce de leche and chimmi churri sauce from Argentina, romesca from Spain, harissa from Morocco, sardines from Portugal and purple potatoes from Peru.

Salazar lays claim to having the first New Mexico restaurant to serve tapas when he opened in 1985. The word "tapa," he said, means to cover something, or use a lid. "Four hundred years ago at the inns in Spain, the wine bottles were covered with a piece of bread to keep the insects out of them," Salazar explained. "Later, they put cheese on the bread, then they added anchovies and other snacks to the bread. With the advent of modern refrigeration and hygiene, the bread came off the bottles and was placed along the bar."

Among El Farol's murals are six by Alfred Morang, who painted the landscapes and bar patrons from the late 1940s into the early '50s to pay off his bar tab, Caruso said. Additional murals were created in the 1980s by the late William Vincent, who early on studied with Morang; in the 1990s by Native American painter Stan Natchez, of Arizona; and more recently by Argentinian artist Sergio Moyano and Hawaiian artist Roland Van Loon, both of whom maintain homes in Santa Fe.

The restaurant rotates nightly live music, including flamenco, rhythm and blues, Latin salsa, folk, jazz and blues.

El Farol Restaurant
808 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM
(505) 983-9912