We will be open for breakfast and luncheon on Friday – Monday from 8:00am to 2:00pm. Enjoy our dining room, front patio, or back garden. Taos Ski Valley is beautiful in the summer. Join us!
Café Naranja Opening Friday for the Summer Season!
Tag: Cafe Naranja
Café Naranja is Open!
The summer season has arrived and we are open! Join us and enjoy the cool mountain breezes. Our flowers are blooming and for the first time in four years, there is no construction adjacent to the café.
We are featuring the same New Mexican breakfast we have during ski season. Our Mountain Luncheon includes Salads, Sandwiches, Salads, and Specialties. Escape the heat in your neck of the woods and drink in the view here in Taos Ski Valley.
We’re open Friday through Monday from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. There are several options for seating: Our front patio, our café, our dining room, or our beautiful back garden.
New York Times: “Mix of New and Old Enlivens Taos Ski Valley”
Writer Christopher Solomon pens a terrific article in today’s New York Times Travel Section about Taos Ski Valley’s transition, thanks to Louis Bacon’s investment in our ski resort.
The article also features beautiful photography by the paper’s Kate Russell. The first thing that struck me about the photos was our famous Taos Light.
Also striking was the author’s mention of our two restaurants here at the Edelweiss Lodge and Spa:
“Perhaps the best food is at the Blonde Bear Tavern in the Edelweiss, with entrees like whole rainbow trout with red grapes and balsamic sauce ($25) or flatiron steak with Italian salsa verde ($28).”
Our flatiron steak, of course, is from New Mexico’s Four Daughters Land & Cattle ranch.
Plus this:
“For breakfast, go to Café Naranja in the Edelweiss, which serves entrees like pancakes made from organic Hopi heirloom blue corn and whole piñon ($7).”
The author has several quotes from our own Matt Gorman, who is a massage therapist here at the Edelweiss. He’s been in Taos Ski Valley since 1999. I liked this quote:
And everywhere, Matt shouted greetings to people he knew. Everybody knows everybody here. He said hi to Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico who is a die-hard skier and who has a house in the area. “I joke and say that it’s not a season pass, it’s a membership card,” Matt told me on the lift. “It’s like a working-class country club. It’s not snooty. The locals are here, working hard, because they love to ski.”
And this quote from Louis Bacon:
“We established three goals: to upgrade the infrastructure and experience, to safeguard Taos’s unique character and to earn a return on our investment. Any two of these are doable, but accomplishing all three will be a challenge. I’m confident that by focusing on the first two goals now, we’ll get them all right for the future.”
Further Reading:
The New York Times: “Mix of New and Old Enlivens Taos Ski Valley”
Related:
“On the Menu: Four Daughters Land and Cattle”
The Biggest Thing Happening in Skiing This Year
The Kachina Peak Lift, right here in Taos Ski Valley.
The new lift will expand the mountain’s advanced and expert lift-serviced terrain by 50 percent. The five-minute ride will whisk skiers up some 1,100 feet on a triple-seated fixed grip lift to New Mexico’s second-highest peak to an altitude of 12,450 feet.
The lift is being manufactured and installed by Salt Lake City-based Skytrac. A majority of the concrete was poured in April, and the crew was back last week to install the poles. I’ve gotten to know some of the guys when they come in Café Naranja to eat breakfast or buy beer.
It’s tough work in tough terrain, but they seem to take it all in stride. Check out the video to see just how tough:
Here’s a report from Albuquerque television station KOAT that aired back in May:
The new lift is on schedule to be operational when ski season starts on Thanksgiving.
Are you ready?
The Best Breakfast Burrito in New Mexico?
New Mexico magazine wants to know. The publication has named the state-wide finalists and is asking readers to vote for their favorite.
Café Naranja has been named one of the finalists. You can vote for your favorite by clicking here.
To celebrate the breakfast burrito’s success and its New Mexico heritage, the magazine has created the “New Mexico True Breakfast Burrito Byway.”
You can vote for as many as 10 of your favorites each day of the voting period. You can submit only one ballot each day.
The finalists are listed in alphabetical order. Once you’ve made your ten or fewer choices be sure to scroll to the bottom of the list and hit the “Submit” button.
And remember you can submit a new ballot every day! Voting ends at 11:45pm this Sunday, May 18.
Cast your vote each day by clicking here.
Taos Forecast: Steep Upgrades
.
From New Mexico magazine’s Nick Heil.
Here’s what he says about The Blonde Bear Tavern:
We made a few more runs before I knocked off that afternoon and headed to The Blonde Bear Tavern, in the lobby of the Edelweiss Lodge and Spa, for an après beer. What the Ski Valley has in abundant untapped terrain it has long lacked in base-area amenities—at least compared to other A-list resorts in the region. But that’s changing, too, and the Edelweiss offered a glimpse of the future. The Blonde Bear Tavern has a more upscale and cosmopolitan vibe than the other watering holes in the base-area village, with a polished stone bar, leather stools, and a discriminating wine list.
“We want people to come and enjoy a meal in a warm atmosphere that has some sophistication, but that is still casual,” said Jon Mudder, The Blonde Bear’s executive chef and a New York City transplant. “The Ski Valley is always going to have a laid-back attitude, and we don’t want to lose that.”
Read the whole thing here.
.
The Gardens of Edelweiss Lodge & Spa
I’ve been gardening since I was a kid in Nebraska. A few years after planting my first seed – a Lima bean I had plucked from a sack in our pantry and stuck it in the ground – I asked my dad if we could clear some bushes and trees in our back yard to make way for a sunny garden plot. He agreed and I’ve been gardening ever since.
During the off season here in Taos Ski Valley, we only operate Café Naranja for breakfast and lunch four days a week. That gives me time to tend to the beautiful gardens that surround the Edelweiss Lodge & Spa.
The Lodge is nestled within the heart of Taos Ski Valley on Sutton Place. The crystal mountain waters of Rio Hondo meander through the north side of the property; these gardens we keep largely in their natural state. To the south and east, we offer a more cultivated expression of our microclimate – our terroir.
Our terroir presents unique gardening benefits – and challenges, but this is my second year, so I think I’m getting the hang of it.
Friends and family have asked that I send pictures of my handiwork, so here they are, both for them and for folks that only come to Taos Ski Valley in the winter.
I spend many hours working the gardens, and do so with great pleasure. My favorite time of day is near dusk, after perhaps a few hours of huffing and puffing in the thin dry mountain air: tilling, planting, watering. At sunset the light turns warm, the breeze becomes soft, and I feel close to God.
The music is the favorite of my grandma – Alice Hopp – to whom I dedicate this short film.
The Taos News Success Stories: The Blonde Bear Tavern
The Taos News runs a periodic “Success Stories” featuring local businesses. The latest is about The Blonde Bear Tavern and Café Naranja, located within the Edelweiss Lodge and Spa in Taos Ski Valley:
The combination of the flair of the European Alps and hominess of Northern New Mexico has always been a big part of what makes Taos Ski Valley so unusual in the American Rockies. And, over the decades, the Edelweiss Lodge and Spa has always been a key player in enhancing that image.
In the past couple of years, the Edelweiss has written a new chapter in its 40-year history of providing luxury, ski-in ski-out accommodations in the base village of Taos Ski Valley. Rebuilt and redefined following a devastating fire, the Edelweiss Lodge and Spa brand now has established itself among the most luxurious lodging options at the resort — and the Southwest.
And that includes fine dining.
Plus this:
[The menu] pays homage to both the Taos Valley and TSV’s rich connection with the traditions of winter resorts in northern Italy, France, Austria and Bavaria. As the menu says, “Our menu gives you a taste of classic dishes from those regions (where skiing originated) interpreted through the casual laid-back attitude for which Taos Ski Valley is known.”
Read the whole thing by clicking the link below:
.
KTAO Ski Report: Brought to you by The Blonde Bear Tavern
.
This ski season, The Blonde Bear Tavern and Cafe Naranja will be sponsoring the Ski Report on KTAO radio. You can listen to KTAO Solar Radio here.
And to hear our first ad, click here: Blonde Bear Tavern_03