This eatery in NC has just been named one of the nation’s best new restaurants
A restaurant in Sanford has been named one of the nation’s best new restaurants by online food publication Eater.
Fonda Lupita, a Mexican restaurant that opened last year on Main Street in Sanford, joined 10 other restaurants in big cities across the country as Eater’s Best New Restaurants in America.
The restaurant opened its doors in mid-March 2020, replacing a breakfast-only diner, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact the United States. A week before Fonda Lupita’s first night of service, North Carolina had ordered restaurants to close their dining rooms in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
The restaurant persevered through the past year and a half and now has the eyes of the food world upon its menu of gorditas, tacos with freshly made tortillas and tamales.
The restaurant is owned by Biridiana Frausto, who runs Fonda Lupito with her family, basing the menu on passed-down recipes from generations of cooks in Mexico, according to the restaurant’s website.
Sanford is by far the smallest town represented on Eater’s list, with other restaurants hailing from foodie capitals like New York and Austin and San Francisco.
In writing about Fonda Lupita, Eater Carolinas editor Erin Perkins compared it to other small town restaurants in North Carolina that have become dining destinations, namely Kindred in college town Davidson and Vivian Howard’s Chef & the Farmer in Kinston.
“If it’s true that a good restaurant can help define the town it’s in — and it is certainly true in North Carolina — Fonda Lupita may just put Sanford on the map for having some of the most heartful cuisine in North Carolina,” Perkins wrote in the story.
In the past, Eater has doled out top honors to North Carolina chefs, including Chef of the Year for Ashley Christensen in 2017 and naming Gabe Barker of Pizzeria Mercato one of its Young Guns, a national distinction for up and coming chefs, in 2018.
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 1:13 PM with the headline "This eatery in NC has just been named one of the nation’s best new restaurants."
