BASQUE-ING IN THE LIMELIGHT.

Byline: SUSAN MEADOWS

Susan Meadows

For The New Mexican

O'Keeffe Cafe

217 Johnson St., 946-1065

Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday; dinner from 5:00 p.m. nightly; "blunch" 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday & Sunday

Award-winning wine list

Noise level: intimate conversation

Patio dining in season

Handicapped-accessible

Credit cards & local checks

The Short Order

Indulge yourself at O'Keeffe Cafe with a classically inspired cuisine that delights with intensely concentrated flavors, generally well-conceived and executed combinations, and surprises like house-made pate, sweetbreads, and braised oxtail that most restaurants eschew for those less flavorful and boring standards, pork loin and chicken breast. The new 12-option prix-fixe menu changes weekly, so there's reason to enjoy the elegant dining room or shady patio often. The wine list is an oenophile's reference. Recommended: baby greens salad, oxtail strudel, house pate, roasted beets and goat-cheese crumble, sweetbreads with sauce au poivre, duck confit, boudin noir and boudin blanc, petit filet with sauce Foyot, chocolate decadence, Black Forest torte, and chocolate hazelnut torte with toffee ice cream.

3 chiles

Executive chef Leo Varos of the O'Keeffe Cafe emerged from the kitchen on a quiet winter night to discuss the spices in his house-made pate (fennel, coriander, and black pepper), but the subject soon turned to the Basque region of the Pyrenees that straddles the French/Spanish border where Varos lived for awhile -- he is equal parts Spanish and New Mexican. Varos' charcuterie is redolent of his European roots. One tastes the Basque country in an amuse bouche of perfectly prepared and tender sweetbreads with an undercurrent of roasted tomato with garlic and rosemary in the sauce au poivre.

Varos likes to work with local farmers and treated us to an example of that with the carefully selected cheese plate. Sweetwoods Dairy tazon de llanto, a hard sheep- and goat-milk cheese -- think pecorino with a hint of the New Mexico grasslands -- is perfectly at home with a trio of delicious Italian, Spanish, and French cheeses. Despite the proximity of El Bulli (the famous molecular gastronomy-friendly restaurant in the Pyrenees that may close permanently in 2012) to Varos' Spanish home base, that brand of food science is not for him. He joked that he spends time trying to get chemical additives out of his food, not into it. His Slow Food ethic, classical techniques, and careful execution create a cuisine that chooses delight over dazzle.