Geronimo: contemporary American on Canyon Road.

Geronimo, on Canyon Road, is renowned contemporary American cuisine in an upscale ambiance — the kind of room that dresses up nicely without ever feeling stuffy. It's one of the half-dozen restaurants in town we recommend for a real night out, and it's the most consistent of them year after year.

The move at Geronimo is to arrive early and start at the bar. Their bar is one of the more charming small bar rooms on Canyon Road — well-poured cocktails, an experienced bartender, and the kind of seat where a 20-minute drink before dinner becomes part of the evening rather than a holding pattern. Sit down at 5:45 for a 6:30 reservation and you'll thank yourself.

They also offer a less formal bar menu — useful to know on a lighter night when you don't want a full sit-down. A few small plates and a couple of cocktails at the bar is a perfectly good Canyon Road evening, especially if you're trying to do dinner-light after a slow lunch. We've used it that way more than once when the night didn't justify the full tasting experience but we still wanted to be on Canyon Road.

The dining room itself is the more formal version: white tablecloths, attentive service, a menu that rotates seasonally. The food is contemporary American with the elk-and-lamb-and-local-trout regional accents you'd hope for. The wine list is real and the markup is reasonable for a restaurant at this tier. Save room for dessert, especially in the colder months when the warm-spice things come out.

Reservations are strongly recommended. Two to three weeks ahead is comfortable for weekend evenings; a week is the floor. Sazon, The Compound, and Geronimo are the three headline upscale rooms in town, and they all book on the same calendar — if you're flying in for a four-day trip and you want any of them, book before you fly.

Practical notes. The dress code is the Santa Fe upscale standard — collared shirt, jacket optional, no shorts. The room is on Canyon Road, which means you can walk it as part of a gallery evening — park at the bottom of Canyon Road, walk the galleries while they're still open in the late afternoon, sit down at Geronimo for the bar drink, and finish the evening with another slow walk back down the street with the gallery windows lit.

Pair it with: an afternoon on Canyon Road, a lunch earlier at The Teahouse a few blocks away, or a nightcap back at the firepit at the house. It's the dressed-up version of the slow Santa Fe evening, and after enough trips we've stopped trying to choose between Geronimo and The Compound — we just rotate them.