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FOOD & DINING: UNHURRIED PACE, DELECTABLE FOOD
AWAIT THE PATIENT TRAVELER (excerpt)
by Ellen Sweets
Photo: Post/Shaun Stanley
Denver Post
Denver, CO
August 3, 2005
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Down the road, on the plaza and tucked inside La Fonda de Taos hotel, is JOSEPH'S TABLE, a slightly pricey, white-linen restaurant serving some of the Southwest's best food. Forget everything you've ever heard about mediocre hotel food. Forget you're even in a hotel.
 Just know that you're in Joseph Wrede's restaurant.
At Joseph's, also known as just plain "Joe's," it's easy to feel transported to Barcelona, in keeping with the hotel's Spanish Colonial tone.
Concentrate on such delectables as the wild mushroom and duck egg flan with pumpkin seed pesto and portobello syrup; or a risotto cake with Parma prosciutto and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
If your luck's running right, you might even score Wrede's lobster and masa bread pudding on Mexican creamed corn or the achiote citrus-marinated grilled quail on pecan quinoa.
Wrede, an Arizona native, studied sociology and English literature at Regis College before transferring and graduating from Peter Kump's Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. He later worked with Denver chef Sean Kelly at Kelly's Aubergine Cafe, and with Pat Perry at Highland's Garden Cafe before moving to Taos.
In 2000, Food & Wine magazine named him one of "America's Ten Best New Chefs." At the time, Joseph's Table occupied a 100-year-old adobe building at Ranchos de Taos, about 3 miles outside of town. Wrede bought the business - a former Chinese restaurant - for $10,000.
"I had planned to close the restaurant and move into this eco-friendly resort, but construction was still underway, so I started traveling," he says. "I was able to explore Japan and Mexico, which has enabled me to expand my way of thinking about food and the integrative process."
Instead of being in one place, he ended up in another where he could return to capitalizing on what he had learned from various experiences.
"I learned so much from Sean (Kelly) that I even patterned one of my menu items on one of his," Wrede says. "We change the menu daily, but people won't let me take this one dish off. I've been making it so long I feel like I'm on a Ronald McDonald line."
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As Joseph Wrede put it, New Mexico is the place to digest one's life.
"In many ways it's a kind of lonely place, and that's why it's considered a spiritual place," he says. "People here are open. When Peter Kump was alive, he said you must try every food source at least once. So we're frying grasshoppers and puddling them in orange sauce with chile and offering them as an appetizer. It's a traditional Mexican hors d'ouevre.
"Hey, I know I'm a husband and a father, but I'm really married to food."
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Click here to make a reservation...
Phone 505-751-4512, or e-mail info@josephstable.com for more information.
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