CITY GUIDES | THE WEST

Where to Eat in Las Cruces and Mesilla Right Now

These are the best restaurants in Southern New Mexico’s chile country

By Rebecca Thompson
Updated May 6, 2026

The Shed

AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs over the years, from daily newspaper writer to middle-school math teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s reviewed Michelin-starred fine-dining to gas station barbecue.

Las Cruces is where the first question about dinner is red or green, to which I usually say yes. It’s close enough to Hatch chile country to make chiles feel less like an ingredient and more like a regional operating system.

Still, the best restaurants in Las Cruces and nearby Mesilla are not all variations on the same enchilada plate. There are old adobe dining rooms, a James Beard-recognized cook turning out chile rellenos, a French pastry chef working in the desert, a local winery bistro, a distillery with a real food program, and enough New Mexican cooking to make lunch feel like a civic obligation.

Here are the best restaurants in Las Cruces and Mesilla right now, from historic New Mexican staples to the newer places giving the city a little more range.

Andele's

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Andele’s began in 1996 as a takeout window from Phil Schneider and his daughter Andrea, and it has grown into one of Mesilla’s default first stops for New Mexican food. The signature remains tacos al carbón, with chicken, beef, or pork cooked on a spit in front of a wood-burning oven, plus a salsa bar that makes the meal feel less like an order and more like a small personal project. Andele’s Dog House is the more casual sibling, useful for a quicker version of the same Mesilla ritual.

Best for: Tacos al carbón and a first Mesilla meal

The Bean of Mesilla

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The Bean of Mesilla gives Las Cruces a necessary coffee-and-breakfast stop. The local café has grown to multiple Las Cruces-area locations, including Old Mesilla, the Mesquite Historic District, and University, with coffee, breakfast, lunch, and the daily rhythm of a place locals actually use. It is the daytime choice between heavier meals, especially when the next plate of enchiladas needs to wait until dinner.

Best for: Coffee, breakfast, and a lighter Mesilla stop

Chala’s Wood Fire Grill

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Chala’s Wood Fire Grill comes from Tortugas native Frankie Torres, who built the restaurant around the cooking of his abuelita, Marciala “Chala” Fierro. The kitchen cuts and smokes its meats in-house, makes its own bacon, bakes its own bread, clarifies its own butter, and makes its own jams, which gives the place more ambition than the usual all-day restaurant. It works for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner, but the draw is the wood-fired cooking and the sense that the restaurant is rooted in a family story.

Best for: Wood-fired comfort with Mesilla roots

Chope’s Bar & Café

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Chope’s sits in La Mesa, just outside Las Cruces, in the former home of Guadalupe and José “Chope” Benavides. Its modern credential is Josefina “Josie” Garcilazo, a 2024 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest, who has spent decades cooking the family recipes. The chile rellenos are the dish to know, with cheddar-stuffed chiles, a delicate batter, and the choice of red chile, green chile, or chile con queso over the top.

Best for: A James Beard-level chile relleno

D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro

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D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro gives Las Cruces a wine-country dinner built around New Mexico wines. The menu brings in local references, including Southwest meatloaf with Hatch green chile and mango-chipotle glaze and Pasta New Mexico with chicken, Hatch green chile, linguine, cream sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, and provolone. The patio and wine list make it one of the easier choices in town for a nicely paced dinner.

Best for: New Mexico wine and an easy date-night dinner

Double Eagle

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Double Eagle is inside an 1849 adobe building in Old Mesilla, with antiques, chandeliers, the Imperial Bar’s carved oak-and-walnut back bar, and the long-running ghost story of Armando and Inez. The dining room does old Mesilla drama at full volume, in a way that makes dinner feel slightly theatrical before the steaks arrive. The kitchen leans steakhouse, with New Mexico-raised beef aged in what’s believed to be the state’s only dedicated beef-aging room.

Best for: Historic Mesilla atmosphere and aged steaks

Dry Point Distillers

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Dry Point Distillers is one of the more interesting concepts in Las Cruces, with food coming from Stone Crow Gourmet, with dishes meant to pair with Dry Point’s spirits. It is the place for cocktails, distillery energy, and something less predictable than another New Mexican plate.

Best for: Cocktails, distillery energy, and chef-driven bar food

La Nueva Casita Café

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The oldest restaurant in Las Cruces began 1957, and its location in the historic Mesquite District gives the restaurant a real sense of place. The food stays close to Southern New Mexico and frontera cooking, with the kind of long memory that matters in a city where chile is practically civic infrastructure.

Best for: Historic Las Cruces cooking with real roots

La Posta de Mesilla

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La Posta de Mesilla has been serving in an 1840s adobe building for more than 85 years, and the restaurant still feels like part meal, part Mesilla museum. The rooms are filled with plants, birds, fish tanks, and old New Mexico details, and the menu stays centered on Mexican and New Mexican classics, including tostadas compuestas tied to the restaurant’s early years. It may not be the most modern kitchen in town, but it remains one of the defining Old Mesilla experiences.

Best for: New Mexican history in Old Mesilla

NM Vintage Wines

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NM Vintage Wines is deeply Old Mesilla in the best ways. The space is the official tasting room for Cowbelle Wines, with New Mexico wine tastings, beer tastings, cigars, and live music several nights a week. After a couple of glasses, it isn’t hard to turn their snacks and charcuterie boards into dinner.

Best for: New Mexico wine and live music in Old Mesilla

Pecan Grill and Brewery

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Pecan Grill and Brewery fills the local brewery-restaurant role, with a kitchen that uses New Mexico ingredients, including Young Guns green chiles. The beer list includes 12 house brews on tap, with pecan and green chile beers tying the place directly to Southern New Mexico. The menu is broad enough for groups, with brunch, burgers, steak, and beer.

Best for: Local beer and a broad group dinner

Salud de Mesilla

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Salud de Mesilla gives Mesilla a more modern dinner, with tapas, brunch, lunch, dinner, cocktails, and a wine program that has earned Wine Spectator recognition. The menu is built for ordering across the table rather than committing to one oversized entrée, which helps distinguish it from the more traditional New Mexican restaurants nearby. It is the stop for small plates, wine, and a dinner that feels current while also still feeling very much like Mesilla.

Best for: Tapas, wine, and a more modern Mesilla dinner

The Shed

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The Shed started in 1995, when Gabriel Mendoza set out to build a better breakfast option. It began in an old laundromat, later moved into a remodeled barbecue restaurant, and now runs as a scratch-kitchen breakfast-and-lunch place with huevos rancheros, breakfast enchiladas, migas, eggs Benedict, and an Old Mesilla breakfast with chorizo and scrambled eggs. This is the kind of New Mexican breakfast that makes the rest of the day feel optional.

Best for: Big New Mexican breakfast and brunch

Si Señor Restaurant

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Si Señor began in Deming in 1984, when Martin and Irene Castillo opened the first restaurant using old family Southern New Mexico recipes. The Las Cruces menu still reads like a regional map, with Rio Grande, Hatch Valley, Las Cruces, Oñate, and Potrillo plates, plus the chips and salsa that have become part of its reputation. It has family history, a clear Southern New Mexico identity, and the confidence of a place that knows exactly what people came to eat.

Best for: Southern New Mexico combination plates

Zeffiro’s Pizzeria

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Zeffiro’s Pizzeria gives downtown Las Cruces a pizza-and-pasta option with enough local identity to make clear this no Italian chain. The menu includes wood-fired steak, chicken Parmigiana, Organ Monte lasagna, and chile lasagna with Alfredo sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, spinach, and Hatch green chile. It is the downtown dinner for the night when pizza sounds right but Las Cruces still insists on making itself known.

Best for: Downtown pizza and Hatch green chile lasagna