Is Maria's New Mexican Kitchen Still Open? Best Thing I Ever Ate Update

Best Thing I Ever Ate, Season 8, Episode 9

"The Best Thing I Ever Ate" (Food Network) featured Maria's New Mexican Kitchen in its "Big Cheese" episode (S8E9), spotlighting the restaurant's New Mexican menu. Maria's New Mexican Kitchen is a New Mexican restaurant and margarita bar at 555 West Cordova Road in Santa Fe, according to the restaurant's own website. According to Yelp, whose Maria's New Mexican Kitchen listing was updated in September 2026, the restaurant continues to receive customer reviews at the Cordova Road address. The restaurant's own website, marias-santafe.com, includes current About, Menu, and Home pages describing its New Mexican cuisine and margarita program, and the restaurant is also listed in Food Network's own restaurant directory, which references the Cordova Road address used in this record and confirms the restaurant's continued operation under the same name.

Food Paradise, Season 9, Episode 11

In the Season 9 episode 'Iconic Eats', the show featured Maria's New Mexican Kitchen, a Santa Fe restaurant built around traditional Northern New Mexican cooking and margaritas, tracing back to recipes founder Maria Lopez began selling from a small take-out kitchen on Cordova Road in 1952. The kitchen grew into a full sit-down restaurant and Santa Fe landmark, later passing through several owners, including the Lucero family starting in 1985 and the Peters family with Santa Fe Dining restaurant group starting in 2013. According to the restaurant's own site, the business expanded into the historic art-supply building next door in 2019 to meet growing demand. Yelp's listing for the Cordova Road address shows continued activity, with the listing updated September 2026. This appearance is treated as the same business already documented in this database under a separate record.