How Three Canadian Restaurant Owners Got Started in Puerto Vallarta Vincci Tsui - Eat North
go to original July 4, 2014

Sandrina's courtyard in Bucerias

Canadians flock to Mexico to escape the long winters. Some fall in love with the country so much that they decide to stay in the warmth and sunshine for good. Few take roots abroad by sharing the flavours from home.

Sandra Neumann

Originally from Winnipeg via Victoria, Sandra Neumann had been travelling to Bucerias, a small resort town 20 minutes northwest of Puerto Vallarta, with her husband Andrew’s family for over 20 years.

“[Andrew’s] father and stepmother were the groundbreakers. They had a restaurant in Winnipeg for years and years, and Andrew’s father and uncle sold it to Andrew, then they just travelled to Mexico,” she said. “They found Bucerias when it was a serious one-horse town.”

Neumann and her family moved to Bucerias in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Though both Neumann and her husband had been in the restaurant industry for years, their original plan was not to open a restaurant.

“When we opened here, our plan was to be an internet café and a deli. I never wanted a restaurant again. I just wanted to, you know, make the shepherd’s pie and have people take it home for dinner, a pick-your-food-up-and-get-the-hell-outta-here kinda thing,” she said. “But then, people would buy the shepherd’s pie and say, ‘Can I sit in the backyard and eat it?’”

Now the “backyard” at Neumann’s restaurant, Sandrina’s, has grown into a lush courtyard teeming with greenery. Soft lighting sets the mood in the evenings, while a water feature near the back of the courtyard babbles softly in the background.

Sandrina’s serves Mediterranean cuisine, including some traditional Greek family recipes passed down from her husband’s grandmother. Neumann is also starting to create dishes with some Mexican influence, like Greek-style stuffed peppers using poblano chiles instead of bell peppers, or nachos with feta, artichokes and kalamata olives.

“We have a couple of dishes that are like ‘Mexican-Greek’ fusion - and I hate to even use that word, ‘fusion’....

Read the rest at Eat North.