Skip to main content

Lino Trattoria and Pizzeria ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico


First visit: Apr 2022

While hopelessly looking for parking the other night at Fire & Hops, we stumbled upon Lino and decided we should try it the next night (and they have their own parking spaces). We were burning out on New Mexican fare (hard to imagine, but true), so Italian sounded like a great diversion. Further research demonstrated they also have a brewery as well. Well now, that makes it a slam dunk - we're trying it! Apparently they've been there 12 years, so I have no idea how we missed it until now.

We had one of those special nights you don't forget. Everything went right on this particular evening.

Having stuffed ourselves at Valentina's in the late morning, we weren't particularly starving when we arrived around 5 in the afternoon. Because we arrived early we were seated in isolation by the to-go entrance, which also houses a bar area (they have two such areas). Which allowed us time to relax and enjoy our beers. As mentioned, they brew their own under the brand name of Chile Line. It also gave us a chance to chat with the floor manager, who reminded us of old fashioned professional waiters. Clearly trained in the art, and he made sure everything was to perfection. We decided to split a 12 inch pizza that is cooked in their custom tiled pizza oven. We chose the pepperoni with green chiles. We can't help ourselves, we must have chile in everything it seems. Asked for it slightly crispy and that's exactly what we received. Delicious. Well... I guess we can eat more, so we then decided to split a Chicken Parm. The pasta was cooked perfectly al dente, with excellent tomato sauce. Orange in color, just as I remembered my Italian neighbors making it rather than the usual red. The Parm was slight crispy and superb. In chatting with the manager, he figured out Mrs. RJG and I had just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So he comped us a yummy tiramisu for dessert and a couple of liqueurs. Just an awesome evening made special by the restaurant and its staff. Lino will be in the must-go rotation for future Santa Fe trips.

4/18/22 (new entry)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Guys Burgers and Fries ~ national chain : Colorado Springs, Colorado

Latest visit: Oct 2023 (Colorado Springs - Interquest) First visit: Jan 2007 (Reston, VA) Locations: 49 states + DC. Only Alaska is missing. There are 30 in Colorado (4 in the Springs). That's +3 from last year. Texas has 68 (our former locale of Southlake is closed, so Hurst would have been the closest). There are 123 in California which is their largest state presence. The original Reston location that I first went to is still going.  In what appears to be a recurring theme, I state each year this will be my last visit to Five Guys. Only to return anyway. This year's excuse is I wanted to try their new location, which very recently opened up close to our house. This is definitely the closest we've ever lived to a Five Guys - even the Reston location was further from my office at the time. And I thought maybe it would make a good choice for a weekday lunch while working from home, thus putting Five Guys back into the rotation. I put that idea to the test here this Saturda...
2 comments
Read more

Denver's Old School Italian Restaurants

I know, I know... I haven't posted anything in 6 months. You were checking back every week, then every month and now I've fallen completely off your radar. Sorry about that. My only lame excuse is that I've been "saving up" for a good one. I've been wanting to write about Denver's Italian restaurants since we returned part-time last year. And you all know how the RJG feels about this style of restaurant . As someone who grew up in Dallas, perhaps I've been more drawn to cities that embrace their history rather than completely demolish it. Only recently has Dallas become more acutely aware of their past. Previously, any buildings not in use have been razed as fast as possible, to make way for the next brand new shopping center - all in the latest architecture naturally. Contrarily you have cities like St. Louis that are 19th and 20th century industrial ghost towns - places frozen in time because for most everyone who could, they just up and left to ...
8 comments
Read more

Pietro's Italian ~ Dallas, Texas ***CLOSED***

Last visit: Feb 2016 First visit: Sometime in 1984 When Mr. Music told me this earlier in the year, my heart sunk. It was reason enough to stop talking and writing about restaurants. All I can say is this: We did give you advance notice. The below was published on  March 28, 2010 , so Pietro gave you a good 7 years to check it out. If you missed it, then I'm sorry to say there is no replacement. No other place like it. A part of me went with it too... January 2014 update: Pietro's is as magnificent as ever. Mrs RJG and I just had another exquisite meal here. It remains my all-time favorite restaurant even after 30 years of going here. I beg and urge you all to try it at least once if you have a hankering for Old School Italian food. I'm sure it will not be here forever. Pietro must be close to 80 now, and it's hard to imagine the restaurant without him. We try to go 3 to 4 times a year, almost always on a Saturday or Sunday because of the traffic to get to inner Dalla...
12 comments
Read more