Owners Juan Carlos Domínguez and Beatriz Salgado  

Juan Carlos Domínguez has been working as a chef in Ottawa for over thirty years, but the story of Ay Wey!, which he and his wife Beatriz Salgado opened in November 2025, is more personal than the cooking he did for restaurants like Le Moulin de Provence and the kitchens of the Mexican and Algerian embassies. 

“Everything started at home,” Domínguez explains, “We are from Mexico originally, and we always dreamed about our cuisine from back home. We used to invite friends over, so people started trying our food and they’d say, ‘why you don’t open a Mexican restaurant?'” 

When Juan and Beatriz started thinking seriously about the idea, they picked McArthur Road for the location. “We always knew that the Vanier area was a great spot for business.”  

The restaurant’s signature dish, tacos al pastor, is made with meat carved from a vertical spit that you might recognize from shawarma restaurants. Though Domínguez notes they do use halal meat, the restaurant’s spit was imported from his hometown Mexico City, where it is known as a trompo and is a traditional part of the city’s street cuisine. 

Ay Wey! also offers unique vegan and vegetarian options, including a version of tacos al pastor with soy instead of meat, a salad made with fresh cactus leaves and sopa tarasca, a soup from Salgado’s home state, Michoacan. 

Give their food a whirl at 295 McArthur Road!