Palm Springs is known for many things, including Midcentury Modern architecture, desert spas, golfing, the aerial tramway, and being a Hollywood refuge. However, in my scattered visits over the years, food could hardly be called a priority. However, that may finally be changing with the arrival of chefs like Jose Garces, who’s already cultivated success in multiple markets before simultaneously opening >Tinto and Mexican cantina-themed El Jefe.

Garces is a protégée of Douglas Rodriguez. He hails from Chicago, moved to New York, and later relocated to Philly, where he partnered with restaurateur Steven Starr. He already operated restaurants in Philadelphia and Chicago when he opened an eatery at the first Saguaro hotel in Scottsdale last November. He promptly joined Joie de Vivre at another cactus-inspired Saguaro in Palm Springs.

The property on an increasingly stylish side of Palm Springs (i.e. the nearby Ace Hotel) opened in 1977 as a Ramada and switched to Holiday Inn before switching to The Saguaro. The designer based the hotel’s color scheme on 14 desert flowers, and metal work mirrors angles found in surrounding mountains. Tinto’s interior features a wood bar, framed bottle openers and corkscrews on walls, and wooden wine racks that double as wall dividers.

The hotel’s courtyard patio has striped banquettes and fire pits with yellow cushioned chairs. A path leads to the pool, where a bar serves dishes from Tinto and El Jefe.

Nicoise ($12) was a fun play on the deconstructed French salad, with rosy, seared big eye tuna topping confit potato. Stacks joined a frisée thatch and green beans dressed with black olive vinaigrette, a fashionable egg quenelle and bright cherry tomatoes.

Merluza en Salsa Verde ($16) consisted of a seared sea bass fillet plated with a trio of tender cockles, which is what certain people call a kind of saltwater clams. Sauce kept the fish juicy, and the fillet also hosted rough cut salsa verde. This was a more than respectable seafood preparation, especially since we were in the land of cacti.

We didn’t plan to order a Tinto Burger ($12), since it seemed pretty pedestrian alongside other menu options, but we were impressed, with a juicy grass-fed beef sporting a good sear, a judicious amount of La Peral, a somewhat pungent blue cheese from northern Spain, crisp butter lettuce, pickled guindilla aioli, and tangy tempranillo grilled onions.

Prawn Brochette ($12) was satisfying, with clear Spanish influences, featuring plump shrimp plated with chorizo, grape tomatoes, aioli dabs, and a modestly spicy espelette pepper sprinkling. Apparently Chef Garces doesn’t see the people of Palm Springs as dainty, since he still provides them with the option to suck the juicy goodness from shrimp heads.

Since we were on a desert retreat, we ordered a glass of the restaurant’s namesake wine, Tinta de Toro ($12) a 2012 bottling from Bodegas Rejadorada in Spain’s Toro D.O.

The description for Tinto’s Bunuelos, Spanish fritters, read well on the page, but in practice, the dessert nearly sank our meal entirely.

Sugar-lined donuts sounded particularly fun, especially since they joined locally grown dates, which appeared as jam and olive oil-drizzled ice cream. Acacia honey for dipping should have completed the sweet puzzle, but the bunuelos were so undercooked that it was alarming. Granted, Tinto had only been open for a matter of days, but sticky uncooked dough in the middle of each donut hole was quite the oversight.

We were on a roll until dessert, when the meal came to a undeveloped halt, but at that point, we picked up enough momentum to carry us through the culinary finish line. We trust that Tinto remedied the situation and that they’ve learned how to fry fully since our visit.

Note: My meal at Tinto was complimentary.