Best Southwestern Restaurant

When it comes to authentic New Mexican food, Julia Blackbird's flies right. The vibrantly colored, busy cafe is the ideal setting for chef/owner Julia Siegfried-Garrison's flamboyant flavors and bold ingredient combinations. The Chimayo chiles stuffed with goat cheese and dusted with blue-corn meal make for chiles rellenos that are out of this world. Closer to home, go straight to Taos with the flash-fried, blue-corn tacos, filled with chicken or beef and a sharp pico, or swing through Navajo country with a bowl of hearty stew chock-full of posole, beans, corn and potatoes, with goat cheese for added zing. Since there's no liquor license here, the strawberry lemonade is the drink of choice.