Restaurant brings Mexico to town

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This article was published 03/08/2022 (1393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JAMES-ASSINIBOIA

You might be worried you forgot your passport when you bite into Cristhel Pipper’s tacos. Pipper, who is from Córdaba, Mexico, and her husband Lyle Jackman, from St. James, have brought a little slice of Mexico to Winnipeg with their restaurant La Taqueria.

“I have always loved cooking,” Pipper, 59, said. “For me, providing great food for my children was very important … For example, for feeding our family at three o’clock in the afternoon (in Mexico), we start cooking at 11 because we put all our effort and love and try to make it very tasty. That’s what Mexican food is. Mexican food is dedication, but also love.”

Pipper moved to Canada in 2019 — a year after she and Jackman married. The pair started with a food truck in July of last summer, before moving into their Ness Avenue location shortly after. She said the restaurant has provided a connection to her home country she hadn’t thought existed in Winnipeg.

“I didn’t know how many Mexican families were here in Winnipeg,” she said. “When I see people come in and they speak in Spanish, it’s so exciting to find out where they’re from. And it turns out sometimes that we are from the same hometown. Sometimes we know the same people. If I didn’t have the restaurant, I wouldn’t know the Mexican people that I know now.”

But Pipper said she also takes joy in providing that connection to home for her Mexican patrons through her cooking.

“I am very proud. I feel proud of what I do because people like it, and that is a sensation that I don’t know how to explain,” she said.

Food, it was clear, is Pipper’s love language.

“We (the staff) are like a family. I cook for them Mexican breakfast … sometimes I ask them, what did you have for breakfast? Oh, fruit. Nope, you need some food,” Pipper laughed.

For both Pipper and Jackman, the transition to restaurant owners has been something of a whirlwind. Pipper was a teacher before making the switch, and Jackson sold paper, which he still does, purely on commission, as a side gig.

But when La Taqueria’s food truck arrived on the scene last summer, Jackson said it was clear Winnipeg had an appetite for their food.

“We quickly realized that it was very popular,” Jackman, 53, said. “Cris would have to get up at like four in the morning to cook for the day. So we rented a kitchen and we would start to order 60 kilos of meat for the week. Then we just kept getting more popular, more popular and it was kind of like, maybe we should look at this a little more seriously.”

Since then, the feedback has rolled in and been overwhelmingly positive, he said.

La Taqueria is located at 1863 Ness Ave. and can be found on SkipTheDishes. Vegan options are available.