Santa Fe, NMMexican

La Choza, on Alarid Street near the Railyard, serves both green and red chile but is especially known for its red, a sauce that tastes a little different from The Shed's. Order your plate smothered in the red.

The Shed is a courtyard restaurant off Palace Avenue, family-owned since 1953 and run by three generations of the Carswell family, and its red chile is the house signature, sold by the jar as well. Any New Mexican classic, from enchiladas and tacos to burritos and huevos rancheros, can be doused in it, and the posole comes with red chile pork. Order the blue corn enchiladas, rolled with cheese and onion under red chile, with pinto beans and posole.

Tomasita's has served New Mexican food since 1974 and now fills a red brick building in the Railyard, where the kitchen still follows recipes created by its namesake, Tomasita Leyba: burritos, enchiladas, chile rellenos, red and green chile and soft sopaipillas. Regulars' favorites include the huevos rancheros and chicken with Christmas-style chile, beans and an egg. Order the huevos rancheros, or the chicken with Christmas-style chile.

Tia Sophia's, on San Francisco Street downtown, is the family restaurant where the breakfast burrito went onto the menu in 1975, credited to the current owner's father, and where a longtime waitress is credited with coining Christmas as shorthand for red and green chile together. Nick Maryol has run it since 2005, and the breakfast rush still turns out hash browns and piñon pancakes. Order a breakfast burrito.

The Plaza Café is the Razatos family's downtown landmark, a Greek diner since Dan Razatos took it over in 1947, where his wife, Beneranda Maria Montoya Saiz, worked her family's traditional recipes into a menu of American and Greek favorites; Greek owners have long kept norteño cooking going here, sopaipillas included. Leonardo Razatos runs it now. Order a New Mexican plate with sopaipillas.