Bay Area Empanada Makers Celebrate Chilean, Argentine Traditions

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

In 1995, Paula Tejeda left her native New York for San Francisco. She and her then-husband found themselves unemployed and scraping by selling sandwiches out of a basket in the Mission District.

Then she received a call that changed her life. An acquaintance told her she needed to buy Chile Lindo, a Chilean restaurant that had operated for decades at the corner of Capp and 16th Streets. Despite knowing nothing about the restaurant business or having any money, she negotiated a price of $10,000 and crossed her fingers she could secure a loan.

“The one thing I knew from day one is that I wanted to build a brand, something that represented Chile, Chilean artists, the food and South America,” said Tejeda, whose parents had immigrated from Chile to New York.

“I used to have a much broader menu, but what stuck were the empanadas,” Tejeda said. “The empanada became my brand. I became known as La Empanada, and then I became known as The Empanada Lady, and now as The Girl from Empanada.”

Chile Lindo has survived in different iterations for more than 40 years — remarkable for a Chilean eatery in the Mission, home to a robust Mexican and Central American community but not a sizable Chilean population.

But empanadas have a universal appeal. I explored the history and cultural significance of empanadas while co-hosting an event for KQED called Empanada Showdown, which celebrated three Bay Area empanada makers: Tejeda; Grace Lontoc, owner of Harinas, a Livermore-based Filipino panaderya; and Joseph Ahearne, owner of El Porteño Empanadas, an Argentine-style eatery.

Besides rice and beans, empanadas may be one of few dishes you’ll find in almost all of Latin America, in savory or sweet versions, baked or fried.

The word empanada roughly translates to “covered in bread” in Spanish. The concept of a filled pastry or bread pocket shows up worldwide: turnovers in the United States, pasties in Ireland, samosas in India.

The empanadas I grew up with were sweet, fruit-filled pastries common in Mexican panaderias — still my go-to pan dulce. I always ask panaderos if they have any de calabasa, or pumpkin, a flavor I can’t resist.

When Tejeda took over Chile Lindo, some Chileans told her, “Nobody even knows where Chile is, and nobody knows empanadas.”

Her response: “They’re never going to know it unless we introduce it.” She also expanded her menu to reflect the Bay Area.

“I wanted to have something that represented the Mexican community,” Tejeda said. “I had a cheese jalapeño, cheddar mozzarella jalapeño and a ham and cheese cheddar mozzarella jalapeño. You have to navigate where you stick with the culture, but you’re also part of the neighborhood.”

Chile Lindo was recently named a San Francisco Legacy Business, a designation for businesses that have existed for more than 30 years.

“I’ve been able to prove to the Chileans that Chile Lindo had a place in San Francisco,” Tejeda said.

Ahearne grew up in Napa, where his mother, an immigrant from Argentina, ran a restaurant while raising five kids alone after her husband passed away.

“My mom would make empanadas for any special occasion. It’s not an easy process. It takes a couple days,” Ahearne said. “When she would make them, she would never let us taste any of the fillings, taste them before whatever the occasion was. The anticipation was just torture. It was just waiting and waiting. So, I really associate empanadas with that big reward.”

In the mid-2000s, Ahearne and his wife, Teresa, were raising young children and thinking of starting a food business to have flexible schedules. They landed on empanadas, and El Porteño was born.

“That was in 2008, the financial crisis was a great time to leave everything and start a business — it was crazy,” he said. “The Twitter street food movement was happening. We kind of caught on a little bit because of that, and we kind of rode Paula’s coattails, too.”

El Porteño — meaning someone from the port, a reference to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires — started at farmers markets and food festivals, promoted on Twitter when food vendors advertised their locations in real time. Then came wholesale orders from Whole Foods. In 2010, the team secured a spot in the Ferry Building. Now El Porteño has a second San Francisco location and one in Napa.

The menu has expanded to more than a dozen varieties, including the traditional Argentine empanada, similar to the Chilean version with beef, onions, raisins, olives and hard-boiled egg. Other options include chicken, spinach, chard, ham and cheese and sweet varieties.

Empanadas sell well because they are self-contained, portable and easy to reheat, Ahearne said. They are best made in large batches, he said, because of the labor-intensive process: making the dough, preparing the fillings, assembling and baking.

Running El Porteño “is about sustenance, but it’s also about a way of life,” Ahearne said. “It’s about family and celebration for me and definitely my mom’s heritage, too.”