Alex De Vore
Richard Perea in his biscochito-making habitat.
If you grew up in New Mexico, chances are you’ve got a whole messload of feelings wrapped up in the biscochito, our state cookie and a deceptively simple example of how the old ways are sometimes the best ways. I say “simple” because there are really just a few ingredients: flour, sugar, brandy, anise, cinnamon, sugar and the all-important lard. In fact, according to Santa Fe Bisochito Company founder Richard Perea, that lard bit might be the most important part, because New Mexicans have generations of emotion tied to the noble biscochito and it just tastes better that way. Perea should know—he’s kind of the king of biscochitos.
Perea opened his increasingly popular Santa Fe Biscochito Company (330 Sandoval St., santafebiscochitocompany.com) in 2024 and became, at least as far as memory serves, the only business focused on the cookie that Santa Fe has ever seen (sorry if some such shop existed in the 1930s or something, I wasn’t alive then). A dedicated biscochito shop seems so obvious now that it exists, and it makes getting the cookie not just a Christmas thing, though there are certainly plenty of holiday feelings mixed into the deal, too, even if it’s quite nice to be able to grab one of those crumbly, sweet treats whenever one wishes. This has made Perea fairly popular, he says, which includes the coveted New Mexico True certification the state reserves for products that best show off the puro Nuevo Mexicano vibe of our state, as well as a first place win in SFR’s also-and-actually-probably-even-more-coveted annual Best of Santa Fe reader’s poll. Full disclosure, too? I can’t stop eating them.
“I had a lady from Florida recently ask me, ‘what’s so special about the biscochito?’ so I gave her the whole spiel,” Perea tells SFR. “It goes back hundreds of years…we’d only get it at Christmas…it’s different in how it’s special for everyone.”
For Perea, the cookie is a reminder of good times and that full-to-bursting cookie tin each December when he was a kid. His grandma Beatrice Perea made tortillas for local hotel restaurants, but neither she nor his parents baked biscochitos in the winter. Still, he says, they were present each year without fail. The trick to opening a successful cookie business when you don’t have family recipes, however, is trial and error and making them your own.
Perea has a background as a jewelry designer, but also as a sous chef for restaurants in Arizona, where he lived for 14 years in his 20s, and at the Four Seasons’ Rancho Encantado, now Terra. He also worked at The Shed, perhaps Santa Fe’s most legendary New Mexican restaurant, back when it first started offering dinner service. And though he ultimately wanted to open a Cheesecake Factory franchise, a divorce and move back to Santa Fe in 2015 led him to the biscochito.
This began with a cart on the Plaza starting in 2021, but in the years that followed, his clientele grew and consistently asked when he’d go brick and mortar. Perea became an early member of The Kitchen Table commercial kitchen here in Santa Fe, too, but in 2024, when some buddies from his jewelry days just so happened to have a line on a downtown space they couldn’t afford without a third partner, he jumped at the chance to kick the business up a notch. Santa Fe Biscochito Company opened its doors in the former Primo Cigar Shop & Lounge on Sandoval Street that May. And it’s adorable, from the warm and comfy environs of the seating area to the small kitchen space and single countertop convection oven with which Perea bakes his cookies. He’ll have to get a larger oven eventually, he says, but for now, Perea manages to bake enough batches to feed the throngs, even if he does sell out of cookies entirely some days.
“It’s crazy to think, but no one else is doing it,” he says of his shop. “But also, what really happened, I think, was that I learned to make ice cream.”
Adam Ferguson
Indeed, Perea offers biscochito-flavored ice cream he co-developed with La Lecheria ice cream shop owner Joel Coleman, but it’s his own recipe—as are a chocolate piñon number and a whipped honey butter variety that makes an affogato or Perea’s most excellent biscochito ice cream sandwich one of the most New Mexican-esque flavor combos around. The drip coffee comes from Aroma, naturally, but if we’re talking espresso, Perea sources that from up-and-coming roasting company Odd Box. Perea’s shop also stocks Zia symbol cookie cutters sourced from local teens and their 3D printer, Christmas ornaments that salute the farolito, biscochito dust (think of it as a product you’d put in your spice rack) and, soon, pre-made and pre-cut take-and-bake frozen biscochito dough. And it doesn’t even end there. Perea says he’s working on a deal to supply his cookies to local hotels (see you in hell, Otis Spunkmeyer garbage!) and that numerous restaurants have come knocking. Perea also plans to bolster his online offerings so he can ship cookies wherever they may be needed, whenever. But he’s very aware of just how many irons he’s got in the fire, and is thus trying to take a measured approach to his many potential rollouts.
For now, Perea says, he’s simply focused on crafting a simple product that people know and love, and doing it well. He tried dozens of iterations to create his version of the perfect biscochito, but he kept coming back to the same conclusion: Keep it simple.
“You don’t need all that extra stuff,” he says. “I’ve been asked to make them gluten-free, or organic, or vegan, even or whatever—and I’ve tried expensive brandy, orange zest, I’ve tried sangria and I’ve tried all the wines. In the end, the best way, and it’s the way people love, is just the good old humble cookie. The biscochito...it’s ours in New Mexico, in our own unique way. And I truly enjoy it. I love it, actually.”
