The Shed – Santa Fe
THE SHED is a little spot in Santa Fe just a few steps off the infamous Plaza on East Palace Avenue. The Shed is one of those places you hear about that you must try, both for the delicious food and for the historic building and ambiance.
THE GOOD
Location.
The location is stellar. The historic building dates back to 1692! Wow, that’s a long time. According to The Shed’s website, the location was previously used as a burro stable, then a family hacienda, then a restaurant when The Shed moved in circa 1960. You can see the historic hacienda structure if you try. Coming in off Palace Ave puts you into a courtyard with access to several other shops in various directions. There is some outside seating here for the restaurant as well.
Food.
The food is really delicious, specifically the red and green chile. I ordered a taco+enchilada combo plate with a red chile beef enchilada. My partner ordered the carne adovada plate with flour tortillas. I also ordered a side of green just for a taste test. The red chile was super delicious. It was medium spicy (that point where you don’t NEED sour cream, but man, sour cream makes it extra delicious) and deeply flavorful, with a deep red color. The green chile sauce was beautifully free of filler and extras, and tasted 100% of fresh roasted green chile. It was not spicy that day.
Garlic Bread.
I don’t know the history of having garlic bread instead of tortillas or sopaipillas, but the garlic bread was really good, especially dipped in the red sauce.
Guacamole.
We ordered the chips and salsa (see below under THE BAD, spoiler alert) plus guacamole. The guacamole was pretty good!
No cilantro.
I didn’t see cilantro on anything. Win!
THE BAD
THE NOISE.
My heavens, the noise. It was crowded when we were there, and the place was full of tourists. I think partly the acoustics are to blame, so when one table starts talking, it reverberates around the room, then other tables have to start talking louder to hear each other, and on and on in an infinite cycle of loudness one-upmanship until someone’s head explodes. At one point we were trying to have a conversation, but could NOT hear each other at all, despite being seated at a super narrow table (so just 18″ of distance between our faces). We joked, “MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST TEXT?!” “WHAT?!” ‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU, JUST TEXT ME!”
Taco Fail.
I ordered the enchilada & taco plate. The taco was served next to the enchilada, on its side, in a sea of red chile sauce. So half of it was submerged in red chile, so I had to eat it with a fork. Also, the shell was either supposed to be crispy but was soggy, or was supposed to be soft but was stale, because it was somewhere in between, which made it kind of… chewy. Not a fan of that.
Chips and Salsa – 3 Strikes!
Strike 1: The chips were thick and cold, and I don’t like them either of those ways, much less both of those ways.
Strike 2: The salsa was bland.
Strike 3: You have to pay for chips and salsa. It’s like $4 for just chips & salsa, or $8.25 to add less than 1 cup of guacamole… and none of it is worth it.
So in closing, I will say that the location and food are great. The place is too loud and the food is not great enough to get me to go back. Plus, major chips & salsa fail.
What do you think about THE SHED in Santa Fe? Love it? Leave it? What am I missing here?
