Crafted Cafe

Coffee at the front, New Mexico bottles at the back. Crafted works as the tasting room of the Inn and Spa at Loretto, which means a specialty coffee or tea and a light bite in the morning, and a shelf of state-made wine and spirits to carry away.

The hotel's coffee counter, not its restaurant

Crafted sits alongside Luminaria Restaurant & Patio and The Living Room within the same hotel, and the division of labour is clear: those two handle meals and lounging, this one handles coffee, tea and something small. That makes it the useful room early in the day, before Santa Fe’s restaurants open and after a night in the hotel, and it keeps the format tight. Specialty coffee drinks and teas lead, light bites follow, and the counter is scaled to a pause rather than a meal. The tasting-room name is the accurate one: this is as much a retail counter as a cafe, and the two functions share the same small room.

A tasting room with a New Mexico shelf

The retail side is what separates Crafted from a generic hotel coffee counter. The wine is entirely from New Mexico producers, Gruet, Vivac, Milagro, Casa Rondeña and Sheehan among them, which is a genuinely useful list for a visitor trying to understand what the state grows. The spirits are the same story: Santa Fe Spirits vodka, gin, apple brandy and single malt whiskey; KGB Spirits bourbon, vodka and gin; Nikle Co. vodka and gin; and Left Turn Distilling’s Old Tom gin. Taken together it is a small, deliberate showcase of New Mexico’s beverage makers, sitting in a room most guests walk into looking for a coffee.

Start with the coffee, leave with a bottle

Order from the coffee and tea side first, since that is what the counter is built around, then add whatever light bite is out. The pairing is straightforward and the room is quiet enough to sit with it. On the way out, look at the shelf. A visitor curious about New Mexico wine can start with Gruet, then work across Vivac, Milagro, Casa Rondeña and Sheehan. For spirits, Santa Fe Spirits and Left Turn Distilling are the two names to know. If a full meal is wanted, that belongs at Luminaria or The Living Room, which is exactly the point of keeping Crafted small.