El Presidente, a culinary love letter to Mexico City from restaurateur Stephen Starr, sprouts up in the bustling Union Market District on Wednesday, with, among other items, bacon tacos, classic ceviches, and Oaxacan-style tlayudas.

Situated at 1255 Union St. NE inside Signal House, El Presidente is the latest restaurant from Starr, the man behind Le Diplomate on 14th street and St. Anselm, also in the Union Market area. At 6,000 square feet, the restaurant seats more than 190 guests inside and 70 people outside. It comprises several dining areas: a bar, the cozy Theatre Room, the main dining room, and a patio, all on a single floor.

The restaurant is currently open for dinner service, but soon will feature lunch and brunch as well.

El Presidente plays on how Mexico City, home to 8.8 million people, has cuisine from all over Mexico — it’s a metropolis where people from everywhere come to live and work. As such, there will be dishes from all over the country, including the Yucatán, Oaxaca, Baja, and other parts of Northern Mexico.

The menu is based on Padilla’s experiences and travels through Mexico, as well as Starr’s vision for the new spot. Padilla is a Mexican American chef who spent more than a decade working as culinary director for Rick Bayless’ culinary group in Chicago — Bayless is famous for cooking Mexican cuisine. David LaForce, the executive chef, is an alum of El Vez, Starr’s trendy Mexican restaurant in Philadelphia.

Padilla says El Presidente will serve up cuisine that’s dynamic, from the heart and — with a few less traditional dishes — challenges what people typically think of as Mexican food.

“There’s a lot of assumptions on what people have about Mexican cuisine on this side of the border but it’s so much more broad, it’s so much deeper in tradition, in history and it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing,” Padilla says. “It’s some things that are very, very authentic that you would recognize right away and it’s some things that make you think … about what Mexican cuisine is.”

There are the traditional Mexico City quesadillas that Padilla says look more like empanadas. They’re made out of corn masa and stuffed with cheese, roasted poblano chiles and caramelized onions before they’re deep fried.

Then there’s a tlayuda, an iconic Oaxacan food that consists of meats and cheeses on a large crispy or fried tortilla. One of the non-traditional tlayudas has tomatoes and burrata cheese and a bit of avocado. Another one is a play on New Haven-style white clam pizza. Padilla’s has a Mexican touch with clam braised in mojo de ajo, or garlic sauce.

When it comes to tacos, El Presidente dishes traditional carnitas and northern carne asada-style on homemade flour tortillas. Then there’s the spicy and tangy barbecue bacon tacos.

The team starts with a house-made blue corn tortilla brushed with a silky black bean puree made out of Oaxacan-style refried black beans scented with avocado leaf and fried in lard with white onions. Then they throw on a braised and seared slab of bacon and glaze it with Veracruz-inspired salsa negra. That’s topped with queso fresco and cilantro and fresh salsa roja made out of guajillo chili, chipotle, and roasted tomatillo.

“We know it’ll fly out of here,” LaForce said of the bacon taco.

The team picked the name El Presidente, Spanish for “the president,” as an homage to the city the restaurant will call home. El Presidente is in the Union Market District near its sister restaurant St. Anselm. It’s also near Taqueria Las Gemelas — where President Joe Biden famously grabbed a taco lunch — and La Cosecha, the Latin American marketplace.

When it comes to the drinks, standouts include the Air Force Uno cocktail that’s made with Mexican rum, salted grapefruit, guajillo pepper, mint, and topo chico. The Sgt. Pepper combines mezcal, Ancho Reyes chili liqueur, red bell pepper juice, Thai chili, and chili salt.

Beyond that, El Presidente offers 100 tequilas and 50 mezcals, gins with Mexican botanicals, and rums.

Asked if there is anything at the new restaurant that will remind diners of Le Diplomate, a French hotspot that regularly attracts high-profile guests, the chefs say El Presidente has the same high energy that’ll hit guests as soon as they enter.

“The feeling you get when you walk into Le Diplomate is the feeling you’ll get here, as well as more of a fun atmosphere,” LaForce said. “The hospitality will be just as good, if not better.”