Food & Drink IN THE KITCHEN
By Karen Greco
The Chef Next Door La Vecina Taqueria’s Mariana Gonzalez-Trasvina’s dishes up authentic Mexican street food recalled from her childhood “There’s just something so comforting about eating a good taco,” says Mariana Gonzalez-Trasvina. The executive chef of Bar Cino is also running the kitchen of La Vecina Taqueria, a new Mexican street food-inspired eatery she co-conceived with Newport Restaurant Group. “When restaurants were allowed to reopen [during the pandemic], Bar Cino could operate only at 50 percent capacity with the restrictions,” explains Gonzalez-Trasvina. She and her team brainstormed ways to get the restaurant to full capacity and bring everyone back to work. Taking over an empty retail space beside Bar Cino
expanded their footprint enough that they returned to normal numbers. But when restrictions were lifted, they had a new space they needed to fill. “Bar Cino was not meant to double its capacity,” she says. So they decided to try a two-week pop-up. “Our beverage director, Shawn Westhoven, was GM at the time, and he told me to cook what I loved,” she says. For Gonzalez-Trasvina, cooking from the heart meant cuisine from her native Mexico City. La Vecina (its translation means “the girl next door”) was born. Gonzalez-Trasvina left Mexico City at eight, when her mother’s corporate job
brought them to Puerto Rico. She discovered cooking while living on the island and decided to get her culinary degrees (two of them, one in pastry and one in culinary arts) from Johnson & Wales University. “I love pastry; that’s what put me in the kitchen,” she says. “But what makes me passionate are the cultures behind the foods, and that’s reflected more on the savory side.” While in Providence, Gonzalez-Trasvina fell in love with southern New England and opted to remain local. She started cooking with Newport Restaurant Group as an intern, working her way through their various kitchens before becoming vested in the
Photos by Erin McGinn, courtesy of La Vecina Taqueria
Mexico City-inspired tacos from La Vecina Taqueria
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The Bay • May 2022
