New Mexico Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in New Mexico

New Mexico has 8 steakhouses across 7 towns — three in Albuquerque, and single rooms in Santa Fe, Ruidoso, Mesilla, Pinos Altos and Truth or Consequences. For a state this size that is a thin list, but two of these buildings are older than most states.

All eight

1. Double Eagle (Mesilla) — in an adobe house built in 1849, the oldest building in Old Mesilla, with gold-leaf ceilings, Victorian chandeliers and a well-documented ghost story. The best dining room in the state by some distance.
2. Market Steer Steakhouse (Santa Fe) — in the Hotel St. Francis downtown, and the most contemporary cooking on this page.
3. Char (Albuquerque) — the city’s serious modern steakhouse, dry-aged and properly run.
4. Vernon’s Speakeasy (Albuquerque) — a password-at-the-door steakhouse, which sounds like a gimmick and is actually one of the better steaks in New Mexico.
5. Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House (Pinos Altos) — an 1860s mining-camp saloon in the Gila, adobe walls, live music, and steaks cooked in a building that predates New Mexico statehood by fifty years.
6. Texas Club (Ruidoso) — up in the Sacramento Mountains near the racetrack, and the southeast’s steak dinner.
7. Los Arcos Steak & Lobster (Truth or Consequences) — in a town that renamed itself after a radio quiz show in 1950, which is the best piece of trivia attached to any listing in this directory.
8. Ruth’s Chris (Albuquerque) — the only national chain steakhouse in New Mexico.

An 1849 adobe, and the story the staff will tell you

Old Mesilla was a Mexican town until the Gadsden Purchase moved the border in 1854. The adobe house that is now the Double Eagle went up around 1849, during the boom, and is the oldest building still standing on the plaza.

The story attached to it is this. The family’s son, Armando, fell in love with one of the household servants, Inez. His mother found them together, came at Inez with a pair of sewing scissors, and in the struggle stabbed her own son as well. Inez died that night. Armando died three days later. Both in the same room, which is now a dining room, and which staff and guests have reported flickering lights and cold spots in ever since.

You can decide what you make of that. What is not in dispute is the room itself: pressed-tin and gold-leaf ceilings, chandeliers brought from Europe, and a building that was already decades old when New Mexico became a territory.

Browse by city: Albuquerque and Santa Fe.