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CHOICE TABLES: TAOS, NM (excerpt)
Taking the Bite Out of a New Mexico Winter
by Henry Shukman
Photo by Rick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times
New York Times
New York, NY
February 10, 2008
 Joseph's Table, with its dark wood banisters and floor and multiple levels, could almost be some Colorado après-ski bar. There are even three silken boudoir-like alcoves that might be ideal for couples romancing after a day on the slopes. Half the room is adorned with a mural of giant three-foot flowers, which stimulated a little debate at our table as to whether they're parrot tulips - a question that stumped the otherwise excellently informative waiter (they're French tulips, it turns out); the other half, around the Butterfly Bar, is painted with titular butterflies.
Since Joseph's Table moved a few years ago from its humble two-room beginnings on the side of the highway out of town to La Fonda Hotel on Taos Plaza, it has effortlessly taken the crown of northern New Mexican cuisine. Joseph Wrede is an exceptionally gifted chef. It seems whatever he touches will wake up the senses. I've never forgotten my first bite of a caramelized risotto cake at the old spot eight years ago. With its portobello mushroom syrup and embedded hint of Parmesan, it was one of those moments when the culinary horizon expands. What was this golden-brown nugget of crunch and succulence? Whoever sautéed risotto after making it? I'd never had anything like it. And it's still on the menu ($14), as sweet and intriguing as ever, along with other starters like warm pan-seared foie gras on little slices of French toast with a spicy pineapple chutney ($22), and sautéed kale and leeks offered as a warm winter salad ($9).
On a recent visit, after anguishing a little over whether to try the soy-cured duck breast ($32) or the pork tenderloin with drunken black beans ($32), we fell for two steaks: a formidable "American" steak au poivre with mushroom Madeira sauce ($39), and a New York strip with garlic balsamic demi-glace ($36). The first is three solid inches of filet mignon. How can such a hefty hunk of meat possibly be so weightless, and so beguiling? And the half-mashed blue-cheese potatoes that came with the other were also strangely light and airy. Both steaks were faultless, the one sweet and delicate, the other more robust. We finished with crème brûlée infused with bay leaf ($9), and chocolate quenelles ($6) - two fat twists of dense chocolate - and a sip of tawny port.
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Phone 575-751-4512, or e-mail info@josephstable.com for more information.
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