New ‘Authentic’ Mexican Restaurant Opens In Fredericton
FREDERICTON-A new, authentic Mexican food restaurant, El Mariachi, is opening its doors in the old St. Thomas University Rigby Hall meal hall.
Carlos Alvarez, general manager and head chef of El Mariachi, said he’s lived in Fredericton for about a year now and found there’s no real Mexican food in the city.
“I really struggled getting good [Mexican] food here in town,” said Alvarez.
He created a plan to open an authentic Mexican restaurant in Fredericton and presented it at the beginning of the year to a potential investor, who liked the idea.
“The owner obviously trusted me to open [El Mariachi], they know of my cooking abilities. So we decided to bring it to life here in Fredericton,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez lived in Mexico until about four years ago when he moved to Halifax. He started as a dishwasher and said his manager saw his potential to work in a kitchen. Eventually, he upgraded to working in the kitchen and he says that’s where he started cooking Canadian food.
From there, he went on to work at a Mexican taco restaurant, where he started as the sous-chef. After that, he was a head chef at another Mexican restaurant in Halifax.
“From there I started really [getting] into the Mexican food. I have a background of being a Mexican, right, but I really started cooking here.”
Now managing El Mariachi in Fredericton, Alvarez wants to bring authentic Mexican food to the city.
The restaurant’s main specialty will be tacos. They will offer a variety of tacos, such as fish, chicken, carne asada, carnitas, and vegetarian. The restaurant will serve burritos, quesadillas, tortas, nachos, taquitos, mariachi pizza, and mariachi burger, which Alvarez said is a surprise.
The restaurant also plans on serving enchiladas and chicken mole. In the future, Alvarez said he plans to add some more popular Mexican dishes.
As for the name of the restaurant, just like the food, Alvarez said he wanted to keep it authentic. Since the restaurant is located in the old Rigby Hall cafeteria, there are around 100 seats.
El Mariachi officially opened on May 26 and will be open to customers daily.
Jessica Saulnier is a summer intern for Huddle. Send her your story tips: [email protected].