Restaurant in Santa Fe, United States
Spa-setting dinner that earns its detour.

Izanami Restaurant at Ten Thousand Waves earns a Pearl Recommended designation for 2025, with a 4.5 Google rating from over 700 reviewers. Under chef Mattie McGhee, it delivers Southwestern cuisine with Japanese influences in a mountain spa setting above Santa Fe — making it the strongest special-occasion restaurant option outside the downtown Plaza.
Izanami Restaurant earns a Pearl Recommended designation for 2025, and with a Google rating of 4.5 across 701 reviews, the consensus is consistent: this is one of the more considered dining experiences in Santa Fe. Under chef Mattie McGhee, the kitchen works within a Southwestern cuisine framework at Ten Thousand Waves — the Japanese-inspired mountain spa retreat above the city. If you are planning a special occasion dinner or a date night that needs to feel like an event rather than just a meal, Izanami is one of the stronger calls in Santa Fe right now.
Izanami sits at 21 Ten Thousand Waves Way, which means your dinner comes packaged with altitude, a spa-resort setting, and a distinct remove from the downtown Plaza crowd. That physical separation is part of the value proposition. You are not just booking a table — you are booking a departure from the city's more trafficked restaurant row. For a celebration or a first-rate date, the setting does real work before a dish arrives.
The cuisine is anchored in Southwestern tradition but the menu at Izanami draws on Japanese influences from its host property. Chef McGhee works within that intersection, and the result is a program with more range than you would expect from a hotel restaurant at this altitude. The drinks program is worth noting independently: Ten Thousand Waves has a long-standing culture of considered hospitality, and Izanami's bar reflects that. If you are building your evening around cocktails before or after a soak in one of the property's hot tubs, the bar holds up as a destination on its own terms. It is a reasonable alternative to the downtown Santa Fe bar scene , quieter, more intentional, and easier to hold a conversation in. Compare that to the livelier bars covered in our full Santa Fe bars guide and you will see it occupies a different register entirely.
For solo diners, the bar is the natural entry point and the setting is comfortable without requiring a group. For parties celebrating a milestone, the combination of setting, food, and drinks program makes Izanami one of the more complete special-occasion options in the city.
Against the broader Santa Fe restaurant scene , explored in depth in our full Santa Fe restaurants guide , Izanami occupies a specific niche. It is not competing with Sazón for deep New Mexican tradition or with 229 Galisteo St for downtown proximity. It competes on atmosphere and the spa-resort package, which is a different value trade than most Santa Fe options are offering.
If you are weighing Izanami against nationally recognised destination restaurants , Le Bernardin in New York City, The French Laundry in Napa, or Lazy Bear in San Francisco , the comparison does not quite hold at that tier. But within the Santa Fe market, and specifically for the occasion-dinner category, Izanami is a genuine recommendation rather than a default fallback.
Izanami is located at 21 Ten Thousand Waves Way, Santa Fe, NM 87501 , up the mountain from the city centre, so plan for a drive or a rideshare. Booking is rated Easy, meaning you should not face the weeks-in-advance scramble that marks harder-to-get Santa Fe reservations. That said, weekend evenings at a property like Ten Thousand Waves fill up, and pairing a dinner reservation with a hot tub booking requires coordination. If your visit is date-specific, book both at the same time. For further context on hotels near the property, see our full Santa Fe hotels guide. Price range data is not currently available in our records , check directly with the restaurant for current menu pricing before committing.
For more to do in the city, our full Santa Fe experiences guide and our full Santa Fe wineries guide are worth a look if you are building a longer itinerary.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Izanami Restaurant | Easy | — | |
| Santa Fe Bite | Unknown | — | |
| Harry’s Roadhouse | Unknown | — | |
| Sazón | Unknown | — | |
| Paper Dosa | Unknown | — | |
| The Pink Adobe | Unknown | — |
How Izanami Restaurant stacks up against the competition.
Izanami's Southwestern cuisine framework typically accommodates vegetarian and gluten-aware requests, but specific dietary protocols are not documented in Pearl's venue record. check the venue's official channels before booking if you have strict requirements — the Ten Thousand Waves resort context suggests a kitchen accustomed to varied guest needs, but confirm rather than assume.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in Pearl's venue record for Izanami. Given the resort setting at Ten Thousand Waves, a bar or lounge area is plausible, but call ahead if bar dining is your preferred format rather than arriving and hoping for availability.
Book at least one to two weeks out, more if you're visiting during Santa Fe's busy summer or Indian Market season. Izanami carries a Pearl Recommended 2025 designation and a strong Google consensus, which means demand is consistent. The mountain location at Ten Thousand Waves also draws resort guests, so tables compete across multiple audiences.
Yes, with the right expectations. The Ten Thousand Waves setting at 21 Ten Thousand Waves Way gives the meal a built-in sense of occasion — altitude, resort atmosphere, and remove from the city centre. Chef Mattie McGhee's Southwestern cuisine and a Pearl Recommended 2025 rating support the case. For pure Santa Fe fine dining formality, Sazón runs more traditionally special-occasion; Izanami trades on setting and distinctiveness over ceremony.
For a more urban, New Mexican-inflected experience, Harry's Roadhouse and Santa Fe Bite cover the casual end well. Paper Dosa is the call if you want something genuinely different from the Southwestern playbook. Sazón is the serious fine-dining alternative if price and formality are less of a concern. The Pink Adobe covers the historic Santa Fe atmosphere angle. Izanami's specific edge is its spa-resort setting — none of these replicate that combination.
The resort setting at Ten Thousand Waves makes solo dining here more comfortable than at a standard city restaurant — the atmosphere is calm rather than scene-focused. Whether bar seating is available for solo guests is not confirmed in Pearl's venue data, so contact the restaurant to ask about counter or bar options before booking a full table alone.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.