27-02-2025
New modern American restaurant to open in Eldorado
House meats dried for 28 days with green chile chimichurri and mole rojo. A bean and mushroom cassoulet, complete with oyster mushrooms and local beans.
After trading Jackson Hole, Wyo., for the Eldorado area south of Santa Fe about three years ago, Paul Wireman is poised to open a restaurant with a flexible menu that will offer meats and produce from the southern Rocky Mountains and a modern American style of cuisine.
The new Fable Restaurant and Market is slated to open its doors in the Agora Shopping Center at 7 Avenida Vista Grande, Suite B6, in Eldorado in the next few weeks. On its opening, it will become one of several restaurants in a growing residential area. A sample menu teases a variety of entrees and starters featuring strong regional influences.
"We're really trying to be connected to this community. There's definitely a need for some more food choices out here, without having to drive into Santa Fe," Wireman said. "We're just excited to be offering a delicious product to the community."
Wireman is waiting to secure a liquor license before opening the restaurant, which will have the capacity to sit about 60 people indoors, along with an outdoor patio that could hold about 40 people. But a market selling produce, sandwiches and other goods is already open, serving lunch during the day.
"It's a restaurant-market concept. So we have take-and-bake meals, soups, stocks [for soups] and sauces. We bake focaccia and cookies everyday," Wireman said of the market.
The market is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Friday and offers "grab-and go lunch" each day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. except on Sundays. On Saturday, the market is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The restaurant, which is not yet open, plans to be open from 4:30 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and closed Sunday, Wireman said. The restaurant aims to have a smaller menu that changes often.
The Fable Restaurant and Market will open in the space that was occupied by Arable, a restaurant that closed last year.
"You can come in and have a drink and a casual meal. If you want to have a more elevated experience, we will have those options as well," Wireman said.
Wireman has cooked professionally since the early 2000s. He was the co-owner of Trio: An American Bistro in Jackson Hole before opting to move to Lamy with his family a couple of years ago. He was also the co-owner of a modern American steakhouse on the Jackson Hole town square called Local Restaurant & Bar.
The Fable Restaurant and Market marks the latest chapter for Wireman. After selling the restaurants in Wyoming, Wireman's family embarked on a road trip across 30 states but kept circling back to the Santa Fe region, eventually deciding to resettle here, lured by the high desert landscapes; his children go to school in Eldorado.
He characterized the restaurant as a family operation. His wife, Jessica Wireman, will play a role in the front of the house and develop the restaurant's wine list, while a friend from Jackson Hole will help lead the restaurant's kitchen.
An application for the restaurant received by Santa Fe County related to the liquor license request seeks to define what the sensibility of the restaurant will be.
"The menu will feature local produce and proteins sourced directly from the farms and ranchers of the southern Rocky Mountains. Drawing on our love of the American West, we are proud to work with small family farms and feature specialty items grown in fresh mountain soil,' states the application.
Other culinary options in the Eldorado area include Upper Crust Pizza Eldorado, Taste of Maggie's Cocina and Fusion Tacos El Dorado.
Entrees included on a sample menu for the Fable Restaurant and Market include beef filet, hand cut with asparagus and duck egg, priced at $42; red chile beef short ribs with scallion gnocchi and Tucumcari cotija cheese, priced at $32; and a summer vegetable pasta, priced at $26. A burger is priced at $18 on the sample menu.
The interior of the restaurant features a green motif on the walls as well as faux brick — "farmhouse meets modern," Wireman said.
