Pink Adobe changed hands. Here's what it is now.

For years we told guests the same thing about Pink Adobe: if The Shed is booked, go here. Traditional New Mexican, a patio in summer, fireplace rooms in winter, and a table you could usually get. That advice is out of date, so we're updating it.

Two things happened, three years apart. In early 2023 the restaurant sold to Ira and Sylvia Seret, who own Inn of the Five Graces next door, and they ran it more or less as it was. The real change came this year: it closed over the winter for five months, gutted and rebuilt the kitchen, brought in chef Mario Espinosa out of Mexico City, and reopened in May. The building on Old Santa Fe Trail is the same one it has been since 1944. Most of what comes out of it is new.

What it is now is a dressier, more expensive restaurant. The menu reads contemporary Mexican rather than traditional New Mexican — rack of lamb, grilled rib eye, aguachile, crab croquettes. Entrées run from the low thirties into the sixties. The guacamole is twenty-one dollars. That's a real dinner out, not the easy Tuesday it used to be.

About forty percent of the menu is legacy, and it lives in a section called Pink Classics: Steak Dunigan, French onion soup, wild boar gypsy stew, and Seafood Lucifer, which is the dish we used to send people for under its old name, Clams Lucifer. If you're going for nostalgia, order from that part of the menu. The New Mexican plates our guide used to point you at aren't there anymore, and the enchiladas that remain are a chef's feature that leans Mexican.

The food is still good. We want to be clear about that, because "changed ownership" usually gets said as an insult and we don't mean it as one. It's a well-run room with a serious kitchen. It just isn't the same room, and it isn't the room our guide sent you to.

The Dragon Room, the bar side, is the part we'd still walk into without a plan. Old oak beams, low light, art on the walls, a casual sharing menu, and good cocktails, Tuesday through Sunday from four to nine. Walking in is the norm there. Worth knowing: they close the Dragon Room and the patio for private events some nights and post those on their site, so check before you count on it.

So here's the updated advice. Book Pink Adobe when you want an occasion dinner near the Plaza and you're ready to spend like it. Walk into the Dragon Room when you want a drink and a snack in one of the better old rooms in Santa Fe. And if what you actually wanted was traditional New Mexican on a night you didn't plan ahead, go to Casa Chimayo (look for the Bella's sign), or La Choza in the Railyard, or Joe's Tequila Bar if casual is fine.

Practical notes. Old Santa Fe Trail runs south from the Plaza, about fifteen minutes from either of our houses. Parking is on-site and on the street. The dining room is dinner only, Tuesday through Sunday from five, closed Mondays, and their site says reservations are required, so book it. There is live music on the patio some evenings, which is worth timing for.