La Bamba Restaurant Winnipeg

When the Godinez family opened the first La Bamba in Saskatoon in 2007, part of their impetus was the exhaustion of searching for the authentic bouquet of flavours that bursts forth in traditional Mexican dishes. "We were tired of trying restaurants that pretended to be Mexican," Juan Godinez says on La Bamba's website, "but were never [finding] the real flavours we were craving." Their solution was that first restaurant in Saskatoon, whose success has bloomed into a family of four Mexican eateries. When La Bamba Restaurant opened downtown with partner Edgar Rascon in 2012, the Winnipeg Free Press heralded its arrival, grouping it into a buzz-worthy trend of new restaurants popping up in the city centre. Today, the restaurant clings to its culinary roots by serving up homestyle enchiladas, chipotle-beef tacos, and chilaquiles, with gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan options for those with dietary restrictions and those who firmly believe that they're stegosauruses.