NOSA RESTAURANT REAL FOOD, JUST AS MOTHER NATURE INTENDED

By Anya Sebastian

It all started with a tomato, a freshly picked tomato from Graham Dodds’ grandparents’ farm in Scotland. He was just a youngster at the time, but he vividly remembers his grandfather asking him to first smell it and then take a bite. “I didn’t realize there were no decent tomatoes in grocery stores until I took that first bite,” he says. “What a difference! It made me realize what food was really supposed to taste like.” That childhood experience was to become the driving force behind Graham’s inspired and ingredient-driven cuisine.

He became passionate about food, devoting himself to learning the craft, first by attending the Western Culinary Institute in Oregon, then studying at the Cordon Bleu Pastry School in London and even going to Thailand to take a course in Thai cooking. Asian food is still a firm favorite of his.

Working in restaurants around Europe and in the US provided the necessary practical experience, until Graham finally found a congenial culinary home at the Higgins restaurant in Portland. “Greg Higgins was an early pioneer in the farm-to-table movement,” he explains.” It was the late 1990’s and that was still quite a new thing. It resonated with me because it was a real celebration of the best ingredients, which was exactly what I wanted to do.”

Things fell into place when he became chef de cuisine in a restaurant in Vermont. It had a garden on site, as well as its own farmyard, and the constantly changing menu was inspired by what was in season and locally available at the time. That gave Graham the opportunity to begin developing his own distinctive personality with food.

It then inspired him to go out on his own and in 2008 he opened a restaurant in Dallas. “I had no freezer and no fryer,” he recalls. “because everything was local, sustainable and seasonal, with fresh ingredients coming in every day. So the menu changed every day, too, because dishes were created around what came in. It became a really popular place and even won a Restaurant of the Year award.”

Throughout this time, Graham had been visiting Santa Fe on a number of occasions, staying in a friend’s casita in Ojo Caliente, and he loved it there. When he heard that the Rancho de San Juan, a secluded inn and restaurant, set in the scenic Ojo Caliente river valley, overlooking the majestic Jemez mountains, was looking for a new owner... well, long story short, the renamed NOSA RESTAURANT & INN opened in July last year.

“I wanted to get away from big cities and this place is perfect for me,” says Graham. “The landscape is stunning and there’s a real enthusiasm here for fresh, seasonal ingredients. There are farms all around, plus, of course, the Farmers’ Market in Santa Fe and I’m getting to know and build relationships with many of the farmers. I’ve even discovered new foods, like Bacchus radishes and hinona kabu turnips. I’m constantly amazed by what people can grow here.”

Since Graham prepares and cooks everything himself, NOSA is open for dinner reservations on Friday and Saturday, lunch and dinner on Sunday and he does have a beer and wine license. Well worth the 35-mile drive from Santa Fe, Graham’s unique and imaginative cuisine offers a completely different kind of dining experience, one that is at the same time unpretentious, warm and welcoming. This is clearly home for Graham for the long-term, and when he says, “I want this place to be open to everyone, not just for special occasions,” he really means it.

NOSA Restaurant & Inn

49, Rancho de San Juan Ojo Caliente 505.753.0881 nosanm.com