On a trip to New Mexico, some years ago, I got off the plane in Albuquerque, took my first look at the high desert, and declared, wide-eyed and with an uncharacteristic lack of cynicism, “This place is magical.” In the parking lot of Frontier Restaurant, a beloved cafeteria where I did as the locals do and smeared honey on warm flour tortillas, I realized how far from an original thought it was: the official state nickname, immortalized on license plates, is Land of Enchantment. (The unofficial version is Land of Entrapment; once people arrive, they tend not to leave.)
In September, Eric See, an Albuquerque native and pastry chef who’s lived on the East Coast for ten years, imported a bit of that ineffable spirit to New York when he opened Ursula, a Crown Heights café named for his New Mexican grandmother and inspired by his home state in ways both obvious and subtle. The question of what New Yorkers will do to find solace in what seems likely to be a grim and isolating winter has been resounding in the past few weeks. As I stood in line for a made-to-order breakfast burrito and a warm spiced drink one recent wet, chilly morning, I felt my mood rising—hygge by way of the Southwest.
That the breakfast burritos are the lowest-hanging fruit—available only until noon, they tend to sell out on weekends—does not mean that they’re overrated. Though I can’t in good conscience recommend drinking alcohol to excess, I can tell you that the concert of scrambled egg, bacon, shredded hash browns, Cheddar cheese, and green Hatch chili, wrapped tightly in a flour tortilla and lightly griddled, is so obviously a cure for a hangover that it inspired in me a perverse desire to be nursing one.
When possible, See gets his Hatch chilies, a category that encompasses several flavorful, mild-to-hot types grown, and often roasted, by farms in New Mexico’s Hatch Valley, from the source. In September, his mother bought seventy-five pounds of fresh green ones near Albuquerque, peeled and chopped them, sealed them in plastic bags, as is the custom in New Mexico—“If it didn’t come in a Ziploc bag, then I don’t trust it,” See told me, only half joking—and froze them, before hand-delivering them to New York. When circumstances prevent this transport system, he plans to use a mix of a dehydrated stash and a jarred variety from Zia Hatch Chile Company, a Brooklyn-based brand started by a transplant from Santa Fe.
Chilies are crucial to the menu, showing up in the passion-fruit glaze on a pillowy doughnut, in sopaipillas—a traditional New Mexican fry bread that gets sliced in half to sandwich refried pinto beans and carne adovada (New Mexico-style braised pork), ground beef, or vegan Spanish rice—and in the aioli on the smoked-turkey B.L.T., See’s twist on a beloved specialty known as the Albuquerque turkey. (Chilies can also be ordered as stand-alone sides.) But they’re far from his only reference to the region. Scones are made with blue corn, an essential ingredient in the cuisine of the state’s Native American tribes. The idea for a lavender-brined-chicken-and-feta sandwich came out of See’s affection for two New Mexican farms: a now closed goat dairy called the Old Windmill and Los Poblanos, which grows lavender in Albuquerque.
In general, the state’s climate is good for shrubby herbs and other woody plants; “holistic herbalism,” See explained, holds a place of pride in the culture. When liver damage stopped See from drinking alcohol, he turned toward tea as a remedy, getting deep into making his own blends, which he sells at a Brooklyn bazaar called Oddities Flea Market. At Ursula, he uses them in oat-milk lattes, combining palo santo with rose petals, cinnamon, and hibiscus, or rooibos with toasted rice, cinnamon, and vanilla bean, in homage to the Mexican drink horchata. Equal parts comforting and enchanting, they’re one idea for fending off the January blues. (Dishes $9-$14.) ♦
