Tacos and Tapas: New Latin inspired restaurants heat up downtown Kitchener: Andrew Coppolino | CBC News

The range of food available in downtown Kitchener is diverse and includes Japanese, Korean, Salvadoran and Ethiopian, to name only a few.

Add to that recent Indian restaurant openings — Sahar’s Kitchen and Jayalakshmi in the east end and Bahar in the west — and diners have an even wider range of offerings for curries, vindaloos and delicious dosas.

But in the last few months, there has been added Latin inspiration to the food already available, and all within a few blocks.

Nestled right beside long-established Portuguese-based Nova Era Bakery, Churrasqueria Madeira is a takeaway specializing in Portuguese dishes and those of the Azores.

Farther along King Street between Benton and Queen is international quick-service Galito’s hailing from South Africa and specializing in Portuguese-style grilled chicken.

While the downtown has a number of well-established and popular venues — Pupuseria Latinos and Guanaquita, for example — selling Central American food and specifically Salvadoran dishes including tacos, two new Mexican restaurants have opened virtually in the same month.

Welcoming flavours from Mexico

Tacos are the focus of Casa Toro at Benton and Charles streets. Owner and chef Fernando Toro says he’s “very pleased” that there are so many Latin restaurants here and other cultures too.

“It means that customers are craving it, asking for it. I’ve been trying to check out all the restaurants, and the ones that I’ve visited I’ve just loved. Miguel and Vanessa are next door to me at La Lola Tapas Bar, and their food is amazing and we share customers,” Toro says.

It’s a brave new restaurant world — even more since COVID-19 reared its ugly head — and these new businesses have had to adapt and adjust in their early days of operations.

Toro has been tweaking his menu, as new restaurants all need to do, since building out the restaurant, calculating and projecting numbers and putting into motion his business plan.

“It’s not that I don’t see those numbers anymore, but now I see the people, the customers, giving feedback. I’m happy with that, and we’re listening to everyone and working on service and being consistent,” says Toro.

Toro serves tacos inspired by the flavours of his birthplace, Puebla, Mexico, including conchinita and al pastor tacos as well as ceviche, tamales for breakfast and a unique preparation called esquites, a corn-in-a-cup dish with chilies, lime juice and crema. He also serves a trio of aqua fresca beverages daily with flavours such as hibiscus, lime and horchata.

In the centre block of the downtown, Don Julio Tacos and Tequila Bar is a new addition to the La Cucina, McCabe’s and Bobby O’Brien’s family.

Chef Juan Sanchez, who has cooked at fine and upscale-casual restaurants in Toronto, recognized the dearth of true Mexican restaurants in the core and is excited to be able to share the foods inspired by Puebla, Mexico at the 45-seat restaurant and bar.

“We are trying for contemporary Mexican cuisine, not following only the traditional dishes. We make everything from scratch, including the tortillas, following the same processes we have back home but with a touch of something different,” says Sanchez.

Eight tacos and quesadillas are served with home-made tortillas and main dishes which include costilla de res beef short ribs in adobo sauce.

Spanish cuisine from Madrid

Right next door to Casa Toro, La Lola Tapas Bar has opened a small venue that specializes in Spanish cuisine and specifically Madrid, the hometown of chef and co-owner Miguel Pastor Alvarez.

La Lola fills up quickly as customers visit for a daily blackboard menu: gambas al ajillo, flamenquines con patates, croquetas de queso azul and a unique and scrumptious cheesecake, among other dishes.

La Lola had operated in Preston for a few years but moved to downtown Kitchener for one important reason: meeting their customers on their home turf, according to co-owner Vanessa Stankiewicz.

“Looking at our stats, we realized in January that 89 per cent of our restaurant customers are coming from the Kitchener-Waterloo area, so we started to look at spaces and we lucked out with this one,” she says.

The beverage menu includes specially imported Spanish wines and their house-made Sangria. In the future, when the restaurant has found its pace, you can look forward to the kitchen adding their signature paella to the menu.

“We’re showing what is a Spanish tapas bar in Waterloo region and especially here in downtown Kitchener. It’s a tiny, little, cozy spot, and we’re trying to be as authentic as we can and delivering the true tapas experience,” Stankiewicz says.

For all of these new businesses, whether Mexican or Iberian in their flavours and techniques, communicating with their customers and adjusting their processes in the kitchen and front-of-house is good for business, they all say.

But it also helps connect them and makes them feel a part of the community that they have recently joined, according to Sanchez.

“At the end of the day, people have made us feel that we are at home here. We feel supported and that means that day-by-day we will get even busier.”