Restaurants
Fernando's Taqueria
About Fernando's Taqueria
A taqueria is a narrower proposition than a restaurant, and usually the better for it: a short menu built around tortillas, a few fillings done properly, and salsa that carries the whole thing. Fernando's Taqueria trades at 279 Bernard Avenue, down at the lake end of Kelowna's main downtown street, a few blocks from the waterfront parks.
What varies between one taqueria and the next is worth knowing before you go. Some make their tortillas in house and some buy them in, some lean toward the northern Mexican style of grilled meats and others toward slow braises, and the heat of the salsa is never a fixed quantity, so ask before you pour. Portions run small by North American habit, which makes two or three per person the usual arithmetic. Kitchens working this way often keep shorter hours than a full service dining room and can close in the gap between lunch and dinner, so a quick check before you set out from the Mission or Rutland is sensible.
The lower blocks of Bernard have become the densest run of places to eat in the city, helped by the summer street closure that turns the roadway over to patios and pedestrians. In July the crowd mixes visitors off the beach with people who have walked down from the downtown offices; by November it is mostly the latter. Either way the district is compact enough that dinner here can start with a walk along the waterfront and end somewhere else entirely without anyone moving a car.
Visiting Fernando's Taqueria
Getting there
In the Downtown neighbourhood of Kelowna.
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