Popular restaurants this side of the southwest tend to rely on a “thing.” Whether it be handmade tortillas or an ancient family chile recipe, secret menu items only the locals know to order, or some unique concoction of flavors never before seen, the uniqueness and variety dots Cerrillos road in an easy-access cornucopia. These “things” cement together the restaurant community in Santa Fe, and retain its robust food scene–but what about the simple stuff? What about how often you don’t order the secret chicken fried steak and maybe just want some stew on an overcast day?

Dead-center of Dr. Field Goods’ open kitchen is a wood-fired pizza oven. That’s one of Chef Josh Gerwin’s “things.” The staff there, who all interact as if they were an old childhood friend greeting you back to your hometown after ten years, will show you nearly every step in the preparation of your food. The ranch-industrial modern decor combined with the well-oiled machine that is Chef Josh will have you believing in mere minutes that this isn’t just a business and you’re not just a customer. These are friends. A mere day after their reopening, the staff coolly went about these efforts with a line out the door, and not a single person in view looked like they felt pressured or forgotten.

I digress. On that rainy day, all I wanted was some green chile stew–usually a throwaway item, considered too “easy” to put real effort into. It’s nobody’s “thing.” However, instead of vaguely warm, disparate lumps floating in a sea of oiled broth, I found that each morsel retained both its individual taste and texture and simultaneously contributed to the intense and perfectly spicy flavor of the broth. As orders from the butcher-bakery stormed through the front door on foot-high platters and the oven worked its day away, I was mesmerized by potentially the simplest thing on the menu. To me, that’s how you know; when even the stew tastes as if it were cooked on the chef’s last day on Earth.

The butcher shop and bakery, stocked and sourced with all sustainable and local ingredients, sells everything from goat to lamb with all the good cuts, sourced entirely in New Mexico. The dual enterprise here is fascinating. If the farm-to-table ingredients at the restaurant pique your interest and flare your memory–and they will–you can walk straight on over to the butcher shop and bakery and get it fresh. In this way, Chef Gerwin implores his clientele to experiment on their own with these ingredients, engaging with the community on a personal level that surpasses all others, who offer up a plate of social friendliness and call it a day. The conflation of these things: the farm-to-table homestyle fusion cooking experience, the nostalgic decor and behavior of the staff, and the double-endeavor of simultaneous businesses are sure to etch their way into Santa Fe’s legacy for generations.