Restaurant Review: Legal Tender

Love me Tender

By: Laurel Gladden
Published online: Friday, August 17, 2012
Appeared in: Pasateimpo

Few things taste better on a gray, rainy day than green chile stew. A couple of weeks ago, I drove some friends to the train station in Lamy in exchange for lunch. That’s why, in the middle of a midafternoon deluge, I found myself at the Legal Tender restaurant, tucking into a bowl of stew and feeling like I’d just stepped into a time machine.

The tiny village of Lamy came to life in the late 1870s when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad put tracks down in New Mexico. The building housing Legal Tender, which dates to around 1881, is Lamy’s oldest surviving structure and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It functioned as a saloon and general store until the 1950s, when it became a restaurant with the mildly racy name The Pink Garter; cancan girls were part of the regular entertainment. Renamed Legal Tender and later the Legal Tender Restaurant and Saloon, the restaurant operated until 1998. The nonprofit Lamy Railroad & History Museum, founded in 2002, moved into the building in 2006. With the help of volunteers and with private donations, Legal Tender reopened as a restaurant in March after a bureaucracy- riddled hiatus.

History buffs and train fanatics will get a kick out of the railroad artifacts and memorabilia, including a large diorama — complete with an electric train — of the rail route around Lamy as it looked in the 1930s and ’40s. Classic 19th-century details fill the three dining rooms: an ornate antique cherrywood bar, chandeliers with rosy glass, tall tin ceilings, floors of stately black-and-white tile and floral-patterned carpeting, and a collection of 19th-century artwork. It’s not hard to imagine cowboys playing poker at the comfortable round wood tables.

Victorian appointments notwithstanding, the ambience is laid-back and homey, and the service is friendly to the point of feeling almost familial. Everyone other than the kitchen staff is a volunteer, and all proceeds benefit the museum.

About that green chile stew: its rich, well-seasoned broth was studded with hunks of tender pork, potato, and carrot. Alongside the bowl was a giant brick of jalapeño corn- bread that was dense and a little too sweet for my taste. Still, crumble some into the spicy stew, and the sweetness creates a nice counterpoint to the heat.

Legal Tender’s menu includes snacks, salads, sandwiches, and meaty “specialties” such as steak and lamb, with brunch dishes (s’mores French toast, anyone?) on weekends. Versions of two old-school salads, the Caesar and the wedge, are made with refreshing crisp lettuces and creamy, tangy dressings. The charred chicken wings are meaty — and fiery if you order the habanero sauce. They’re just what you want with a cold pint of beer from Santa Fe Brewing Company or Albuquerque’s Marble Brewery.

The rich, filling, and only slightly goopy crab cakes have an excellent crab-to-breadcrumb ratio. The ziti tossed with grated Gruyère and sautéed vegetables (squash, zucchini, and mushrooms, mostly) was too reminiscent of the token vegetarian dishes so many restaurants used to offer. The kitchen makes up for that with its wildly decadent, salty, spicy take on macaroni and cheese: a mess of ziti tossed with bright green peas, cubes of ham (vegetarians can ask for the dish without it), and nuggets of green chile, all slathered in a rich, cheesy béchamel. One night’s seafood special was an overly generous serving of ruby trout fillets atop a golden polenta cake drizzled with a caper-butter sauce.

Come hungry — or plan to share — if you intend to order the Cubano sandwich: thick bread stuffed with smoked pulled pork, cheese, pickles, and plump pink ham. Or really have it your way with the DIY burger. Start with a patty of hearty ground New Mexico beef (or for $4 extra, Kobe- style meat from Oregon) and add goodies of your choice for 50 cents each. Crisp, thick-cut, house-made potato chips and either toothy, spicy-sweet baked beans or crunchy, just-sweet-enough vinegar-based coleslaw accompany every sandwich.

Depending on the time of day you visit, you might have Legal Tender all to yourself. But if the Santa Fe Southern sightseeing train arrives, hungry tourists and families might flood in (and you might have to wait a little longer for attention from your server, but it’s hard to fault volunteers for this). On one of our visits, a diner sat down at the piano and practiced his Beethoven. On another day, we enjoyed acoustic guitar covers of songs by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to James Taylor. In addition to live music, Legal Tender hosts dancing. No word yet on whether they plan to have a cancan night.