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Ambrozia Cafe & Wine Bar
A gourmet Old Town cafe, Ambrozia creates scrumptious contemporary global delicacies with local ingredients. Chef-owner Sam Etheridge whips up his signature lobster corn dogs year-round, and the four-course Sunday brunch is dynamite, with delicious options like granola-crusted French toast, crab cake huevos rancheros , and tequila and red chili salmon.
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Anapurna
This awesome vegetarian café has some of the best food in town, including delicately spiced ayurvedic delights that even carnivores love, plus real chai.
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Artichoke Café
Voted an Albuquerque favorite many times over, it takes the best from Italian, French and American cuisine. The back outdoor patio offers relief from Central Ave traffic, and the ginger crab cakes and the fresh pumpkin ravioli are amazing.
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Atomic Cantina
This live-music club features a popular local cook who runs the in-house Café Gee and prepares a mean line of Cuban sandwiches. Rock bands start tuning up most nights at .
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Chama River Brewing Co
Chama features handcrafted lagers and ales, four large TV screens for watching sports, a cigar lounge and a popular restaurant serving steaks, seafood and other massive dinner dishes (around US$13 -$22).
It also has a micro bar on 2nd St, with seven of its beers on tap.
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Church St Cafe
A cozy cafe in the middle of Old Town, it serves New Mexican fare in the historic Casa de Ruiz, an adobe built in the 1700s. The dining room features heavy wooden beams, mosaic tables and lace curtains. The food is delicious, and the cafe is historic and the exception to the plaza rule. Try the Albuquerque roast beef, and the French dip with green chile on a flour tortilla.
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El Norteño
True Mexican - not New Mexican - cuisine is the thing here, with fantastic pollo norteño , chicken mole and the must-have cabrito al horno (oven-roasted goat).
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Flying Star Cafe
This incredibly and deservedly popular local chain draws flocks with innovative mains (and homey fare like chicken pot pie and fish-and-chips), an extensive breakfast menu, sumptuous desserts, free wireless internet and creative, vibrant decor. It's pushed over the top of the groovy scale with organic, free-range and antibiotic free ingredients. It's simply a must. And portions are humungous. There are additional locations at 723 Silver Ave SW and 8001 Menaul Blvd.
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Frontier
Get in line for enormous cinnamon rolls (made with, like, a stick of butter each!) and the best huevos rancheros. Period. The food, people-watching and Western art are all outstanding.
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Garcia's Kitchen
Homemade specialties - including excellent carne adovada , stuffed sopapillas and five-star breakfasts - make Garcia's Kitchen an Albuquerque classic. Bring an appetite.
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Gold St Café
This pleasant café serves standard New Mexican and American cuisine and has above-average espresso drinks.
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Gruet Steakhouse at the Monte Vista
Ensconced in the former, historic Monte Vista Fire Station, this fine-dining establishment is owned by the Gruet Winery. As a result, you'll enjoy a great wine-and-steak pairing here. Although you'll probably have something like steak salad, they also have a fair amount of seafood. Upstairs, the popular bar spills onto a balcony overlooking the nighttime scene.
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Il Vicino Pizzeria
Sure, you can come for simple traditional fare like wood-fired pizza, sandwiches and pasta. But the real bread and butter here is spectacular award-winning micro-brewed beer, including the Wet Mountain IPA and Slow Down Brown.
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India Palace
Locally favored for spicy East Indian cuisine, the tandooris, curries, seafood and vegetarian dishes here are custom-made to suit anyone's heat tolerance.
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Irysh Mac's
Excellent lattes, pastries and other light snacks are complemented with live local music around most nights - staff put a sign out front if there's a gig. As a bonus, it offers wireless internet.
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Los Cuates
Lines are often out the door for huge plates of high-quality New Mexican cuisine. Los Cuates changed ownership recently, but the food is still first-rate.
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Loyola's Family Restaurant
Pure Route 66 style, Loyola's has been serving fine, no-frills New Mexican fare, to loyal Loyola customers, since before there was even a song about the Mother Rd.
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Olympia Cafe
It's a long way from the Acropolis but this isn't just the best Greek food in Albuquerque - it may be the best Greek food anywhere (yes, including Greece).
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Route 66 Malt Shop
This nostalgic and friendly place started small but recently got a little wiggle room, enough for 10 tables and four stools. It serves great green-chili cheeseburgers, and the house-made root beer is wonderful on its own or as a float.
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Sadie's
A massive place with a barnlike atmosphere (and a big-screen TV in the bar), Sadie's is a local institution. One author makes this her first stop in Albuquerque - bar none. Recite along with us: 'a carafe of grand gold margaritas, please, and the enchilada dinner with blue corn, rolled, chicken, green vegetarian, no onions and a side of guac. Great. Thanks.'
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Satellite Coffee
Albuquerque's answer to Starbuck's lies in these hip coffee shops, luring patrons in with free wireless internet. Owned by the same brilliant folks who started the fabu Flying Star, look for plenty of locations around town.
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Scalo
A northern Italian grill and an Albuquerque staple, Scalo specializes in delicate hand-made gnocchi and tasty grilled pork chops with raspberry mint sauce.
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Seasons
With refreshingly warm yellow walls, high ceilings, fresh flowers and a creative menu, this contemporary place provides a welcome change from the adobes of Old Town. Try the hearty red-chili-dusted chicken burgers or Baja tacos either inside or in the rooftop cantina, where there's live jazz on Saturday and Sunday night.
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Seasons Rotisserie & Grill
With bright-yellow walls, high ceilings, fresh flowers and a creative menu, this contemporary place provides welcome relief from the usual Old Town atmosphere. Try the hearty red-chile-dusted chicken burgers or Baja tacos inside or on the rooftop cantina.
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Tucanos Brazilian Grill
Next to Century 14 Downtown, Tucanos serves an all-inclusive Brazilian-style BBQ with skewered meats and a comprehensive salad bar.
