We had three very good reasons to be celebrating at Mario’s Mariscos Frescos. It was the restaurant’s eighth anniversary. They had recently become the number one ranked San Miguel de Allende restaurant. And it was the start of the sierras arriving from Mazatlan.

Survival hasn’t been easy for any restaurants during the last year and a half. With most restaurants relying on tourist traffic, it’s been particularly tough in San Miguel.

“One day I had a take of 500 pesos. The next day, 700”, said Mario Cabrales. “I felt like locking the doors but that’s not me. My answer to covid was to stay open, to work harder, longer, to stay open seven days a week.”

It’s been a tough time personally for Mario as well. In the space of a year, he lost his mother and two sisters, one to covid.

“You carry on, you just keep going”, said Mario. “Things are better, not a lot, a little, but I have faith. In time, people will be back.”

In a tourist town, there’s nothing more important than your ranking on Trip Advisor to attract English-speaking visitors. If you’re not in the top ten though and you don’t come up on the opening page, the benefits are limited. For the first few years of Mario’s, the restaurant hovered between the 10 and 15 spots. Then, about two years ago, they moved into the top five. This month, they made it to the top of the heap. The number one (out of 534) restaurant. Quite an accomplishment. Especially when Mario Cabrales does it with little or no hype or hustle.

You can push your way up the Trip Advisor ladder (one Mexico City restaurant offers a shot of tequila for a positive review). Or, like Mario’s, you can be pulled up the rankings by your customers. Mario’s has no website, no Facebook page; Mario, himself, doesn’t even have an email address. Casa Kitsch (as Don Day’s Wife calls it) has become the cream of the crop because of their food, their location, their service, and, most of all, their owner.

I mentioned sierras back at the beginning of this blog post. First I should make sure you know what sierras are. 

I’m not referring to those blue mountains to the west of us that Gretchen Peters sings so wonderfully about. I’m talking about a fish that comes from further west, from the waters of the Pacific, from Mazatlan, where Mario Cabrales was born.

I can describe Mexican sierra in one word. Mackerel. From the same family as Spanish mackerel, that fish that seldom makes it across the Atlantic unless it’s in cans and then, often with the word “gato” on the label.

I like Spanish sierras. Don Day’s Wife does not like Spanish sierras. “Too oily, too fishy”, she says.

I love Mexican sierras. Don Day’s Wife likes them too. “They’re so different, not greasy, the meat is sweet.”

The best time for sierra is “…the colder months, now through to March, My nephew just organized my first shipment from the coast”, Mario told us.

Mario cooks his fish whole. Head, tail, fins and skin on. He’ll either grill it or, as long as you give him notice to get the coals glowing, he’ll do it over charcoal.

We hadn’t given him notice (we didn’t know the sierras had arrived) but, while Mario lit the coals, we each downed a couple of pleasantly plump Pacific oysters.

While the coals went from black to white, we tried a new addition to Mario’s menu. They’re what I called deep fried squid, what Mario called calamari chicharones and what Don Day’s Wife called “a wonderful way to scoop up more of Mario’s tartar sauce.”

Mario cooks his sierras two different ways: Plain, with just a little salt and lime or spiced with a drizzle of garlic butter. We chose the second for two reasons; first, because we adore garlic and second because the butter adds a wonderful golden crisp to the delicious skin.

Though some Sierra del Pacifico can grow as long as your arm, most of the ones you’ll see are about 12 to 16 inches and a perfect size for splitting between two.

Our 14-incher had arrived and, like barbecued chicken, barbecued sierra is best eaten with those ten utensils located at the ends of your arms. The competition for the crispy bits began.

Sierras are considered a bony fish and I usually avoid bony fish. But sierras have a very defined vertebra (or backbone and ribs in my other side of the tracks lingo). Which makes the flesh peel very easily off the bone.

The meat was fall-apart flaky, moist, but not at all greasy. We started at the head and worked our way down to the shapely tail, flipped the fish, and worked our way back up.

I knew it was going to happen. I knew before we got too far up the other side of the fish, Don Day’s Wife would be decapitating the sierra and picking out those tiny morsels of the sweetest meat from the cheeks.

“I get the head because I eat the eyes. You don’t eat the eyes, you don’t get the head”, she used as her excuse.

Dessert is not something you go to Mario’s for. We were ready to say our fond farewells. As we left, I asked him about the significance of the pennants that hung from the ceiling.

“My favorite place in the world to be is sitting on the marina in Mazatlan”, said Mario. As the boats sail into the harbor with their daily catch, they raise flags to show what they’ve caught. One flag signifies tuna, another swordfish, another mahi-mahi, these days sierra.”

I told Mario, “This is my Mazatlan. This is my marina. When I’m here is when I find joy. May your ninth year be far more joyful than the eighth.”

Mario’s Mariscos Frescos Estilo Mazatlan is located at Salida a Celaya #83A in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, seven days a week.