The list of businesses on the 300 block of Butler Street in Etna reads like a bingo card for the quintessentially perfect main drag in a Western Pennsylvania small town. There’s an Italian barbershop, pierogi maker, bakery, pizzeria, hardware store, post office, tattoo parlor and, of course, a corner bar.
But next month, a technicolor bolt of culinary creativity will open at 372 Butler St. in the form of Wild Child, the much-anticipated first restaurant from Jamilka Borges, the San Juan, Puerto Rico, native who has become an indispensable leader in Pittsburgh’s dining scene since coming here 14 years ago.
Her first solo project has been a year in the making. She anticipates a late July opening as some final touches are done and inspections are finished.
The all-day restaurant will be a snug 28 seats and brightly colored with tabletops hand-painted with trippy, acid-washed designs by local artist Luanne Haak. New York architect Michael Kreaha (an original partner in Bar Marco in the Strip District) was brought in to maximize space.
“I wanted to open it up and make it feel breezy and light,” she said. “It's a fun atmosphere. It’s not stuck-up, it's not super fancy but it's still nice. You can come in the morning and have your coffee and a good breakfast sandwich or come later with your wife and have a nice dinner.”
Ms. Borges said the experience will vary depending on the time of day — counter service for breakfast and lunch and dinner service that’s “a little more engaging with table service but it's casual and fun.”
The dinner menu will be “seafood and veggie heavy,” she said.
“We’ll have a handful of items that are gonna be rotating often because it's seasonal, and it’ll have a family-style approach that is something you want to share with a group or with somebody else. It's not a strictly Puerto Rican or Caribbean restaurant but it has a lot of that influence.”
She will source from local farms as much as possible.
The BYOB restaurant should feel “like you're going to someone’s party, when you go somewhere and bring your own bottles or beers,” Ms. Borges said. “That’s the vibe that I want.”
She was 17 when she turned to cooking as a form of therapy after her father’s suicide. She came to Pittsburgh 14 years ago to join her Puerto Rican boyfriend who was attending Duquesne University. They broke up within a month and he went home, but she stayed.
After making a life-altering decision to move here, she wasn’t just going to pack it up. She enrolled in culinary school at the former Art Institute of Pittsburgh that year.
“There is something about Pittsburgh that I just love and I’ve made wonderful friends,” she said in January. “It is my adopted hometown.”
She’s worked in and led kitchens at Legume, Bar Marco, Spoon and Independent Brewing Co. She’s been recognized by the James Beard Foundation, and was featured on the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s show when it stopped in Pittsburgh. In the past year, she’s become an ambassador for Kalamata’s Kitchen, a nationally published children’s book series by Somerset native Sarah Thomas, and appeared in a national TV ad for Made In cookware.
Now 35 and with all of that experience, she says her first restaurant will be as much about what she does not want as what she does.
“When you're young, there's always trying to prove yourself. You want it to be about you,” she said. “I remember feeling like I wanted everything to be ‘Chef Jamilka’ and now I don't care about that at all.
“I can’t deal with the pretentiousness of fine dining anymore,” she said, citing grinding kitchen shifts to “make beautiful tiny dishes.”
“I appreciate it but that’s not what I wanna do.... I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I'm burnt out again. I don't want to burn out my staff. And the way to [avoid] that is when you’re just cooking delicious, well thought-out food. It creates a better environment for workers and diners, too. It's never gonna be unapproachable or weird or something that's extremely intimidating. I am not gonna be walking around with my white chef coat and my long apron.
“What I care about is us as a team. I want to play to the strength of my people.”
Opening as the COVID-19 pandemic — which laid bare so many of the systemic problems of the restaurant industry — recedes in the United States makes Wild Child a blank canvas for her to develop a new set of best practices.
“My first restaurant calling the shots, I want to be surrounded by people who are healthy and happy,” she said.
The wage structure will include guaranteed $10-13 hourly minimums for service and kitchen staff with whole-house pooled tips.
“That was something that I was really adamant about. I don't want to have a traditional tipping system. I don't want my front and back of the house to have any animosity. It should be like a family with the same amount of work and respect. I’ve done both, they are both hard. I want to create a business where all of our members are financially OK so that we can grow together and people can be the best version of themselves.”
Wild Child is her first restaurant — “my baby,” she said — but it will not be her last, and it will set a visionary template for what comes after.
“How can we eventually be a restaurant group in this city that stands for good practices and good changes? That’s kind of my goal. There's so many angles and things that I want to do and tackle, but I think I've seen a lot of wrong in our industry and how it can destroy people's lives and I want to make sure that my business is not part of that.
“I am by no means perfect but I live my life with a lot of integrity that I want to pass to what my restaurant is. We can try things and adjust be bold in what we do and how we do it.”
Dan Gigler: dgigler@post-gazette.com.
First Published: June 23, 2021, 1:29 p.m.
Updated: June 23, 2021, 2:06 p.m.
