Aqui Es Santa Fe — Restaurant in Town of Rye

So let’s start off with the rudeness upon my arrival; My party of 6 which consisted of 3 adults, one pre-teen, a, toddler, and a infant were greeted with dirty looks and were asked in a aggressive tone “what we wanted”? We then get seated and had to ask the woman 5-6 times for a high chair even though when we made the reservation, we stated that we’d be needing a high chair. She finally brings one with such a look of distain and annoyance. Our waitress who was this rude older woman with terrible breath asks us our drink order. In which I order a drink with mint in it and she stops me and says “ we do have that drink however, I’m not going to make it for you because it’s raining and I’d need to go to the garden in the back and get the mint”. Which pissed me off cause like what?! She then proceeds to recommend some “signature drink” on the menu to me which my girlfriend ordered and was completely disappointed by. We proceeded to order our food because the woman was rushing us and telling us that we need to our orders in because she was heading to the kitchen and didn’t want to have to walk back and forth too many times. We order our food and after waiting 1 hour in an empty restaurant for our meal with 2 very hungry children. They bring out my order, which I essentially got a flank steak with a mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes with a house salad. My steak was burnt and had no seasoning on it what so ever. The mushroom sauce had separated because they didn’t mix it well after adding heavy cream and tasted bland with again no seasoning. My mashed potato’s still had clumps of hard potato’s in it and you guessed it with no flavor as well. My salad was dripping and soggy from the insane amount of dressing they put on it. Once the woman comes back after 20 mins of dropping off our food. I kindly explained that I didn’t like my entree to which she responded by throwing her hands up and yelling “ OH MY GOD”! “ well what, you want something else”? I kindly told her no thank you I’d be okay. I just wanted her to take it off the bill. The next thing was the true kicker, the owner of the restaurant comes to our table almost in like a shake down attempt and approaches me and says “ what’s the matter, why didn’t you like the food”? “ I need you to tell me what was wrong with it right now, because everyone who comes here likes our food”. I despite wanting to let this old C you next Tuesday know about herself, kindly told her I just wasn’t a fan and that I’m a chef so maybe I just have different taste that it was no problem. She storms off and only comes back to bring us the bill and passively aggressively state each menu item while staying “ I took off the horrible steak you didn’t like” and then proceeds to stand there and watch us while my girlfriends father takes his card out since he decided to treat. Needless to say that if I could give this place zero stars I would. Don’t waste your time coming to this disgusting place. The food is just as horrible as the service and I don’t doubt they won’t last long In...

My husband and I both have careers in architecture & design, so details are very important to us. You know immediately that El Secreto is special, as you turn off of Canyon Road, amongst many fine galleries and restaurants and down a private lane to the very end. Through two secured gates, you enter into a secret garden, which welcomes you to your home away from home. Through a set of glass French entry doors, your first impression is one of amazement….a long corridor of smooth plastered walls and barrel vaulted ceiling. Stunning. The bedrooms are off of this hallway, which continues to the living/dining/kitchen areas. There is also a second set of French doors into another secret garden, so that indoor/outdoor spaces are visually and physically connected. During our week long stay, we used every area of the house, inside and out. All of the amenities of a luxury stay are included…extremely comfortable bedding, linens, pillows, the showers have high water pressure, the kitchen fully equipped (including some very tasty seasonings), two fire pits, several wood burning fireplaces (the weather was too nice to use them however), two different seating groups in the larger of the two gardens, outdoor dining etc. This is the second home that we have rented from Caroline and we highly recommend her listings. Caroline embraces attention to the details and the highest level of service. We were comfortable as a couple…and were comfortable when we had other family members join in the fun. We cooked in the kitchen, had cocktails out in the garden or down the street at El Farol (great outside deck/burgers), alongside very friendly locals and their dogs, which made us feel like true Santa Feans…which was our goal. We will be back. Thank you so much Caroline, for offering up...

The good- the drinks are tasty. Try the strawberry guava sangria. Food- The basics are done well. Rice cooked perfectly, beans flavorful. In fact, most of what we ate was seasoned well. The just ok- the empanadas were fine. Very different from what we expect empanadas to look and taste like. The crust is dense instead of flaky. The chorizo is just ok. The skirt steak was just ok as well. Maybe a little under seasoned. The not so good- the staff is very friendly, but they are understaffed. The restaurant gets busy and it seems like one woman is doing almost everything except bus the tables. The food is slow coming out. We also ordered a round of drinks that never came. Also not so good- the restaurant is too bright and too crowded, which is worsened by the chaos of the workers running around trying to keep up. Everything seems rushed, but that’s contradicted by how slow the food comes out of the kitchen. One other annoyance- the tables are very slippery. Trying to cut through the skirt steak, my plate was sliding all over the table. Maybe they should try tablecloths. Sum up, I don’t think I’ll return there. Although the food was overall good, I did not enjoy the experience, particularly for the price. Two drinks, one shared appetizer, and 2 entrees (non seafood) came to about $115 including tax and tip. The restaurant has potential but misses on too...