Francisco Cabrera heads toward a sunny window table at El Sitio in Collingswood, bearing the same dishes featured on the menu of his restaurant in the capital city of Ecuador.
Bright yellow dabs of spicy aji sauce and honey mustard accompany the dish of white corn empanadas and cheese-filled plantain empanadas. There is a tender tangle of calamari and then a pair of tequenos, long mozzarella fingers wrapped in buttery sheets of pastry.
On another plate, a thick slab of filet mignon with manchego cheese sizzles alongside flame-grilled vegetables on a hot square of black granite.
Like the man himself, the food at Collingswood's newest cafe is at once approachable and exotic.
"This is not your typical steakhouse," he says. "It's more like you are at home."
That is, if you were fortunate enough to be a member of Cabrera's extensive family.
Open just two months, El Sitio (or "the place") is already attracting a reservations-required crowd on Friday and Saturday nights. Owned by Cabrera and his wife, Cecilia Jaramillo, the cafe is a cozier, BYOB version of their 10-year-old restaurant in Quito, Ecuador, also called El Sitio.
The couple and their youngest son, Nicolas, moved to Cherry Hill last year to be closer to their son, Daniel, a grad student at Drexel University, and their daughter, Carolina Cabrera, an interior designer trained in Italy.
"We're a very tight family," says Carolina, who helps out on the weekends.
They spent a year searching for the right space to open a new venture until they found the former Word of Mouth, situated on a sun-drenched corner a few doors down from the Pop Shop.
Just like the weather back home in temperate Ecuador, Cabrera's new cafe is warm and welcoming with citrus-hued walls and gently worn hardwood floors. Orange tiger lillies fill the vases hanging on one wall, the blooms a tantilizing tease of warmer months to come.
The space was decorated by Cabrera's wife and daughter. When the weather changes, the two plan to accent the 30-seat patio with leafy green plants and flowers. It will remind them of home.
"We like more natural things," says Jaramillo, who works alongside her husband at the restaurant. She makes the desserts: chocolate cake, cheesecake, key lime pie and tres leches.
Back home in South America, Cabrera hosts barbecues for 60 to 90 people during the holidays. As a child, he lived in countries all over South America: El Salvador, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Chile, gaining an appreciation for the best of each region.
Educated in the United States, where he received an MBA, Cabrera left the textile industry to follow his love of cooking, taught to him by his mother.
The Quito restaurant has been featured in a South American gourmet magazine, and in an architect's book of photography. In Collingswood, Cabrera is relying on the menu and ingredients that have worked so well for him in the past.
He favors fresh herbs, basil, parsley, cilantro and garlic; grass-fed beef from Hawaii and Uruguay; and fresh seafood showcased in his ceviches, salads and entrees.
The sauces are light, he says, not creamy, and are meant to enhance the natural flavors of the meats.
Made with Peruvian hot peppers and an Incan fruit called tomate de arbol, his aji sauce is a balanced concoction of sweet and spicy -- but not too spicy.
"I think when you eat too much hot, you lose the flavor," says Cabrera, though he will add more heat upon request.
The baby calamari is toothsome and lightly breaded. Offered as an appetizer, it also can be draped over the salads.
The naturally gluten-free plantain empanadas are mildly sweet, crispy on the outside, soft and gooey with cheese on the inside.
An octopus entree is a dramatic dish from Peru: Cabrera quickly grills octopus and slices it, draping the black-olive sauced rings over potatoes. As a special, he sometimes offers grilled octopus served over an argula salad with tomatoes and artichokes.
But it's the smell of grilled steaks that reels customers in off the street. Cabrera hunts down what he likes, and lightly sprinkles the meat with sea salt.
"It's fresh and it's refreshing," says Jaramillo.
Bert Colon of Collingswood lives just a block from El Sitio, and he's already a lunch regular.
He likes the empanadas, especially one with olives in the filling, and the marinated mix of mushrooms that accompanies the bread basket brought to the table.
"The food has been so good that I keep coming back," says the retiree.
"There's a nice energy about the place. You know it's going to be good when you go in by the way you're greeted and the way you feel in the restaurant."
"You've got to be good to survive in Collingswood," says Colon, who has eaten in just about every restaurant in town.
"(El Sitio)'s right in there with them."
Reach Kim Mulford at (856) 486-2448 or kmulford@courierpostonline.com
deempee are discussing. 
BradsDads, and 
William are discussing. 
deempee 7:17 pm on April 20, 2010 Permalink |
Great! Do you have the URL of John and Lisa’s website?
Julia Hays 11:51 am on April 22, 2010 Permalink |
The blog ‘John and Lisa Are Eating in South Jersey’ can be found at http://johnandlisaareeatinginsj.blogspot.com.