Vinaigrette

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Since its splashy opening in November 2008, Santa Feans have eagerly embraced Vinaigrette - an environmentally aware salad bistro that is as green as it is chic. The unabashed heart and soul of Vinaigrette's menu is the entrée salad. Owner Erin Wade — a Harvard-educated, Milan-schooled fashionista turned organic farmer — has reinvented this classic yet current culinary staple proving that being and eating green can be as hip and enjoyable as it is healthful and responsible.

This sensibility started to manifest at Wade's 10-acre organic farm in Nambé called Los Portales, where the ideas that inspired the restaurant are an everyday reality. Many of Vinaigrette's salads were created and developed in the Los Portales kitchen, with ingredients fresh from the garden. This connection to the land and farm pervade the restaurant's philosophy and operations. All of Vinaigrette's organic wastes are religiously collected and taken to the giddy farm pigs, or composted and used to nourish garden beds set to produce upwards of 75% of the restaurants greens and seasonal produce this spring.

Vinaigrette's innovative menu utilizes fresh produce from the farm and the best seasonal ingredients paired in exciting and unexpected ways. "Signature Salads" like the Apple Cheddar Chop — matchsticked green apple and Vermont cheddar, pickled fennel with arugula from the farm and rosemary-scented seared pork tenderloin - rightly lift the salad out of side dish obscurity. Other favorite "Signatures" include the Omega - a chopped salad with avocado, toasted piñon, romaine, corn, bell pepper and cilantro - or the ‘Nutty Pear-fessor’ - an elegant combination of greens, Pt. Reyes Blue Cheese, Nueskes bacon and toasted pecans dressed in a lush Ruby Port vinaigrette.

Classic salads like the Cobb or Caesar have gotten a much needed new spin and can be supplemented with flavorful additions like seared diver scallops or grilled flank steak. One of the most popular "Classic Salads" is the French Frisée, a bistro staple with lardons and poached egg. A perfect afternoon meal by day, the Frisée is equally popular at night with duck confit and a glass of Beaujolais from the well-chosen wine list. In addition to the abundant salads, Vinaigrette features a variety of soups made fresh every day and already garnering accolades; the Roasted Squash & Bosc Pear soup won Best Cream Soup at the famed Santa Fe Souper Bowl competition this January.

Vinaigrette's underlying philosophy is that eating healthy should not be such a chore, a vision that began to take shape during the owner's stint in Milan after college. Of a popular pizzeria near her apartment, Wade says “the menu was endless, but not in a 'trying to have more than the next guy' kind of way; it was just this joyful celebration of all the possibilities nature provides, all the flavor and taste combinations available with simple quality ingredients paired thoughtfully and creatively. Italians have an incredibly infectious sense of entitlement; they take it as a given that they can nourish their bodies and entertain their taste buds at the same time.”

Vinaigrette's bright and playful décor reflects this dedication to being guiltlessly pleasurable. An old adobe home has been renovated into a sunny one-room dining area that creates a warm community feel with vermillion bistro chairs and butcher-block tables. By night the stainless steel bar and Italian glass light fixtures surrounded by lime green tile glow with the candle-lit dining room to create a space that is whimsically modern yet infectiously cozy.

As one local publication aptly put it “eating well never tasted so good.”