The Legal Tender Saloon and the Eating House opposite the Lamy train depot will reopen at the beginning of July or earlier with a new menu and a new operator.
Sean Sinclair, restaurant chef and owner of the Castañeda and Kin bar in Castañeda, Las Vegas, NM, is taking over the legal tender – a move that, he said, “gives me the opportunity to spread my wings a little and do something new “.
Sinclair’s lease at Legal Tender began on Tuesday, and he and builder Allan Affeldt are partners in the post-pandemic incarnation of the restaurant that Murphy O’Brien opened in late August 2019 and operated until the COVID-19 crisis closed.
Sinclair said he’s starting a new menu from scratch.
“Legal Tender focuses almost entirely on historical style,” said Sinclair as he stopped with the keys to the Legal Tender in hand on the first day on the drive from Las Vegas to Lamy. “I have a huge collection of Fred Harvey menus and train wagon menus. We will be serving the food that was served on trains in the 1880s and 1890s. I know we will serve oysters. “
However, the actual menu has not yet been created.
Sinclair opened Bar Castañeda in April 2019. Kin at Castañeda was slated to open as a gourmet restaurant in spring 2020, but the pandemic stopped that. Sinclair operates Kin as a private dining room for now, which is now used by Amazon Studios, who leased the entire Castañeda property through July, said Affeldt, who owns the Castañeda Hotel in Las Vegas.
Sinclair was born and raised in Tijeras, east of Albuquerque, but moved to Portland, Oregon straight out of high school to study at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.
“Portland in general is a great cooking community,” he said. “There’s a lot of farm-to-table access from farms and the ocean.”
While in Portland, Sinclair worked in a number of restaurants including Genoa, referred to as Portland’s “original farm-to-table” restaurant by the Oregon Wine Press.
At 23, he became the head chef at Farm to Table in Albuquerque.
“I just boiled my bum,” Sinclair recalls. “I had come to a point where I wanted to work for a master.”
He accepted a position as sous chef at the Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Virginia, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant under Chef Patrick O’Connell.
Sinclair followed suit with other jobs including a year in Vail, Colorado. He was then recruited by Albuquerque-based Heritage Hotels & Resorts as head chef at Luminaria at the Inn and Spa at Loretto in Santa Fe.
“While I was there, I met Allan [Affeldt]”Said Sinclair. “We talked about Legal Tender, but I’ve just started a job. Ten months later we talked about Castañeda. “
Affeldt acquired the 70-room Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, NM in bankruptcy administration in 2014. In 2017 he took over the Castañeda, and in 2018 he added the Legal Tender with his non-profit organization Winslow Arts Trust.
The outgoing O’Brien said he realized he wasn’t too keen on restarting Legal Tender while also owning Cafe Fina.
“Allan made me do it, but it probably wasn’t right for me,” said O’Brien. “I don’t think I would [stepping away] if everything goes on But that didn’t happen. “
Within the last month the crossing was in the air, first between O’Brien and Affeldt and shortly afterwards between Affeldt and Sinclair.
“When we started thinking about reopening, I just realized it was kind of my mistake,” said O’Brien. “The best thing for me was the exit. How can this happen?”
Affeldt immediately turned to his cook at the Castañeda.
“Sean is the best restaurateur in all of New Mexico,” said Affeldt. “He’s the obvious choice. He is ambitious and wants to expand. “
The new legal tender will open five days a week, but will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The offers at Legal Tender will not be set in stone when they open.
“Everything is in the works in my book,” said Sinclair.
