Jamilka Borges was a 17-year-old in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when she turned to cooking to cope with a family tragedy. She learned the staples of her island’s food from her mother and grandmother.
Now, while coping with the sheer madness of 2020, she has returned to her teenage comfort food at a Garfield pop-up preview for Wild Child, her restaurant slated to open in Etna next year.
“Whenever I’m in conflict or I’m sad, I cook Puerto Rican food for myself or my friends,” she said.
“This is food you would eat at a Sunday dinner at your grandma’s house. It’s delicious and it's comforting. I was so homesick and we are all just so tired of what’s happening with the uncertainty of this year. I was just looking for something that would make me happy.”
Lots of others will be happy with a menu that includes pastales de masa, pernil, mofongo and ceviche.
“The response has been crazy, and it's interesting because it shows how much Pittsburgh has changed,” she said. “Four or five years ago, people would ask me: What is Puerto Rican food? Is it spicy like jerk chicken?” (No, it is not.)
“People weren't as interested then. Now the response has been wonderful and people want to know what it is.”
It has also brought out members of the city’s small but enthusiastic Puerto Rican community.
“I had a woman who got a meal and did a Zoom with her parents who were eating the same thing back in Puerto Rico. They haven't seen each other since the pandemic started,” she said.
“Another woman got engaged to a guy with Puerto Rican heritage and because they couldn’t celebrate with his family, she sent me a message saying how special it was that at least they could have something from his home to celebrate their engagement.
“It's making people happy, and these beautiful messages, as a chef, it was slightly overwhelming in the best way possible.”
On the surface, Puerto Rican fare is simple — pernil (seasoned and roasted pork), beans and rice and fried plantains, for instance. It isn’t terribly photogenic or eye-catching, nor is it ornately plated. But a bite detonates an explosion of flavors.
“It is really savory and garlicky, heartwarming food. There are so many influences — the Spanish, the African. There's a lot of textures and a lot of flavors. We don’t hold back from any seasoning, but it’s very approachable mostly because nothing is too much. It’s just really flavorful, delicious food.”
Ms. Borges came to Pittsburgh 13 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 huge, 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. It is my adopted hometown.”
She has become an indispensable part of the city’s dining scene. She’s been recognized by the James Beard Foundation, was featured on the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s show when it stopped in Pittsburgh and recently appeared in a national TV ad for Made In cookware.
She’s worked in and led kitchens at Legume, Bar Marco, Spoon and Independent Brewing Co., but has not previously cooked Puerto Rican food on a large scale.
“I learned how to cook from my mom and from my grandma, but I never learned how to cook in restaurants in Puerto Rico. So I never felt confident as a ‘Puerto Rican chef.’ I was trained classically and was working at European-centric restaurants. There’s like the fine dining chef inside you that you want to do things that you think are cooler or things that you think are more refined and develop your own style. You don’t realize how great [this food] is.
“With the pandemic, I thought what can I do now that will travel well and people will enjoy, and my business partners said, ‘You should just cook your food — people will love it.’”
They certainly have.
Ms. Borges has never had a place to call her own, but that will soon change. This summer, she announced that she would open Wild Child in Etna. Originally slated for the fall, it’s now set for a spring debut.
“Wild Child is hopefully gonna be a reflection of who I am as a cook,” she said. “I don’t think cooking Puerto Rican food all the time is the answer for me, as much as I love it, but after this experience, I’m thinking, how can I make it part of the program? Do we do a regular Puerto Rican night or maybe a family-style meal on Sundays and make this really unfussy, delicious food?”
She said that her mother has made noises about moving north and opening a place. “She said maybe I should come to Pittsburgh and I should cook Puerto Rican food. She’s a fantastic cook and she always wanted to do her own thing, so who knows?”
The Wild Child pop-up isn’t the only place in town to try Puerto Rican food. For the past few years, Fernando Rios has done catering and pop-ups around the city under the banner of “Freakin Rican BBQ.” Soju on Penn Avenue in Garfield has been a regular stop. He also does Puerto Rican-Korean fusion dishes.
Mr. Rios, who went to Woodland Hills High School, has a Puerto Rican father and an “aunty” from Jamaica. He prepares foods that he grew up on such as the Puerto Rican-style pork ribs and shoulder, grilled octopus and avocado salad, sofrito and tostones.
Set to launch at the end of the month is the “Secretos de mis Abuelos” (Secrets of My Grandparents) food fruck from Felipe Crespo, a Duquesne student of Puerto Rican heritage from Chicago. It will feature his grandparents’ recipes for dishes like arroz con habichuelas rojas, carne guisada, pernil, mofongo and beef empanadas.
Dan Gigler: dgigler@post-gazette.com; Twitter @gigs412
First Published: December 31, 2020, 11:30 a.m.