Graham Dodds’ innovative menus at NOSA change frequently; past offerings have included a cheese plate and Valencian paella with chorizo, chicken thighs and trumpet mushrooms.
n a snowy morning in Northern New Mexico, Graham Dodds is already in the kitchen. While fireplaces crackle in each of four guest rooms, there are neither televisions nor distractions — just mountains, silence and the promise of breakfast. Dodds lives in the back of NOSA, the intimate inn and restaurant he now runs almost entirely on his own. He cooks every dish on his five-course prix-fixe Friday and Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch menus, changes the offerings weekly, waits tables as much as possible and rises again in the morning to make breakfast for his overnight guests. “It feels like I’m inviting people into my home,” he says.
The food is ingredientdriven, as Dallas diners will remember from the years he helped define farm-totable cooking in North Texas, only now it feels more personal than ever. He cooks for a growing circle of repeat regulars, showcasing sugarloaf chicory or giant kohlrabi grown just for him by nearby farmers, and foraged porcini and chanterelles that occasionally come courtesy of a guest willing to share a secret mushroom patch.
The location, 45 minutes outside of Santa Fe, presents challenges, as well, including the quirks of baking at altitude (maybe sticky toffee pudding with a big batch of raw-milk dulce de leche). But the dishes, plated on local pottery, are beautiful and unfussy. His ethos has not changed but rather deepened. “I really feel part of this community,” he says of the serene haven in the mountains. “It’s just so special.”
For years, Dodds says, he felt under the radar. But a recent James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Southwest has brought sold-out Sundays lunches and congratulatory phone calls. The national recognition feels meaningful, he says, because this place is entirely his — his menu, his vision, his pace. “It’s nice to be recognized for a place I’ve put so much of my own energy and time and effort into,” Dodds says. He wrote this chapter himself. One could say the nomination is simply the world catching up.
NOSA RESTAURANT & INN
49 Rancho de San Juan, Ojo Caliente, New Mexico
nosanm.com
Facebook facebook.com/nosanewmexico
Instagram @nosaeats
JAMES BEARD RESTAURANT AND CHEF AWARDS
Winners will be announced June 15 in Chicago. See a complete list of nominees on the website.
jamesbeard.org
EVE HILL-AGNUS teaches English and journalism and is a freelance writer based in Dallas. She earned degrees in English and Education from Stanford University. Her work has appeared in the Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, and the journal Food, Culture & Society. She remains a contributing Food & Wine columnist for the Los Altos Town Crier, the Bay-Area newspaper where she stumbled into journalism by writing food articles during grad school. Her French-American background and childhood spent in France fuel her enduring love for French food and its history. She is also obsessed with goats and cheese.