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Eataly-Style Mexican Marketplace and Restaurant to Open in Flatiron

 Cafe El Presidente offers all the ingredients for Mexican cuisine in one stop.
Cafe El Presidente
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FLATIRON — It’s the Eataly of Mexico.

Cafe El Presidente, a two-story Mexican marketplace and restaurant, is opening in Flatiron with a taqueria, breakfast cafe, juice bar and artisanal tortilla station, plus a selection of gourmet ingredients imported from Mexico.

“It’s like a smaller version of Eataly,” said Dario Wolos, the restaurant’s co-owner. “There are retail sections and different experiences as you move through the store.”

The 6,500-square-foot space at 30 W. 24th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues is set to open in mid-April, Wolos said.

The market’s centerpiece will be its sit-down taqueria, called Tacos Madison, which will offer a variety of seafood, meat, vegetarian and seasonal tacos made with tortillas baked on site, said Wolos, who also owns Mexican restaurants Tacombi at Fonda Nolita in Manhattan and La Brisa in Montauk.

Menu items will include a crispy fish taco, a lobster taco and a pastor taco, which is made with spicy pork and pineapple that have been cooked together on a spit, Wolos said. The price of tacos will range from $3 to $12.

The restaurant will also serve a variety of "spiked juices," including paloma, which is made with tequila and grapefruit juice. Cocktails will include sangrias, plus a dark and light rum pina colada, Wolos said.

Near the restaurant will be a torterilla where artisanal tortillas are made to order in front of the customer. The tortillas can be made with yellow or blue corn and can include ingredients like dehydrated nopal cactus or dehydrated beets, which give the tortillas a purple color and a different flavor, Wolos said.

"Everything is open to view, so people can see everything being made," he said.

Alongside the eateries, the market will carry a range of gourmet ingredients from Mexico — including milk, cheese and drinks from a company called Villa de Patos — as well as locally sourced meats and produce, Wolos said.

“It’s an evolution of what we’ve been doing,” Wolos said. “We wanted to get down to producing all of the aspects of our restaurants ourselves. Now, we have enough space to show the different areas of what we do.”