Finding the Elusive Flavors of Panama
Published: 01:10 PM,Oct 21,2022 | EDITED : 05:10 PM,Oct 21,2022
Patrons eat at KC Gourmet Empanadas in New York on Sept. 28, 2022. (José A. Alvarado Jr./The New York Times)
For years, Karla Cruz has searched New York City for dishes reminiscent of her childhood in Panama, like sancocho, tamales and carimañolas, but there was nothing that emulated those foods she loved. So she promised herself that if there was ever an opportunity, she’d open her own Panamanian restaurant.
In New York City, where the national dishes of so many countries are available, Panamanians living here have been surprised at the scarcity of restaurants serving their cuisine. This challenge has inspired restaurateurs to fill that gap in recent years.
“I wanted something that would transport me back to Panama,” Cruz, 45, said in Spanish. She opened KC Gourmet Empanadas on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2019 and El Carnaval next door in 2021.
There are about 210,000 Panamanians living in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, and about 35,000 of them call the state of New York home. Despite this, it’s been a struggle to find restaurants serving their cuisine, especially after the renowned Panamanian Kelso Bistro and Bar in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn closed in 2017 after 55 years.
For Cruz, who found some familiar flavors at Kelso Bistro, decided to put the food that she grew up with as a child on the menu at her restaurants.
At KC Gourmet, she initially served empanadas made with corn dough and fillings like spicy cheese or ground beef with raisins. After her mother and children later suggested other flavors, like mushroom or pulled pork, Cruz expanded the menu to include more than 50 types of empanadas. But her traditional Panamanian menu has not changed, with dishes like carimañolas, a stuffed yuca dish. She’s worked with distributors to find the herb culantro and the root vegetable named ñame, she said, for her Panamanian sancocho, a traditional chicken soup.
One of her most popular items is her mother’s corn tamales steamed in banana leaves. It can take up to five days to make about 100 of them. (Her mother is such a perfectionist that she and Cruz have argued with each other while making them.)
Three months after Cruz opened her first restaurant, Ronaldo Nimbley and his wife, Fatima Barrios De Nimbley, opened Nimbley Bakery in the Richmond Hill section of Queens. The couple spent eight months in their apartment kitchen testing at least 30 versions of a recipe for their bestselling rosca, a wreath-shaped Panamanian bread.
Barrios De Nimbley developed a passion for the bread when she tried hunting down an authentic rosca for Christmas when she and Nimbley first moved to New York City in 2013. She couldn’t find one and settled on a Mexican-style version instead.
“It’s sad that there was no Panamanian bread,” Nimbley, 42, said in Spanish. “It wasn’t what we wanted, but that’s what there was.”
Her dedication to perfecting the recipe got serious in 2019 when Nimbley began culinary school. (He’s now a chef at the Aman New York hotel in addition to baking at Nimbley.) In a notebook, the couple cataloged tweaks to ingredients like the flour and water until they landed on something that was sweet and would stay soft for days, especially for shipping the bread.
During the holidays and Panamanian Mother’s Day in December, they have been inundated with hundreds of orders in New York and 35 other states.
Nimbley said that when Panamanians find the bakery they’re often in disbelief and have cried when they taste the bread, excited that finally, they have something that reminds them of home.
“This bakery came from the sacrifices and the sadness we had of not having our bread from Panama,” he said in Spanish. — NYT
In New York City, where the national dishes of so many countries are available, Panamanians living here have been surprised at the scarcity of restaurants serving their cuisine. This challenge has inspired restaurateurs to fill that gap in recent years.
“I wanted something that would transport me back to Panama,” Cruz, 45, said in Spanish. She opened KC Gourmet Empanadas on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2019 and El Carnaval next door in 2021.
There are about 210,000 Panamanians living in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, and about 35,000 of them call the state of New York home. Despite this, it’s been a struggle to find restaurants serving their cuisine, especially after the renowned Panamanian Kelso Bistro and Bar in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn closed in 2017 after 55 years.
For Cruz, who found some familiar flavors at Kelso Bistro, decided to put the food that she grew up with as a child on the menu at her restaurants.
At KC Gourmet, she initially served empanadas made with corn dough and fillings like spicy cheese or ground beef with raisins. After her mother and children later suggested other flavors, like mushroom or pulled pork, Cruz expanded the menu to include more than 50 types of empanadas. But her traditional Panamanian menu has not changed, with dishes like carimañolas, a stuffed yuca dish. She’s worked with distributors to find the herb culantro and the root vegetable named ñame, she said, for her Panamanian sancocho, a traditional chicken soup.
One of her most popular items is her mother’s corn tamales steamed in banana leaves. It can take up to five days to make about 100 of them. (Her mother is such a perfectionist that she and Cruz have argued with each other while making them.)
Three months after Cruz opened her first restaurant, Ronaldo Nimbley and his wife, Fatima Barrios De Nimbley, opened Nimbley Bakery in the Richmond Hill section of Queens. The couple spent eight months in their apartment kitchen testing at least 30 versions of a recipe for their bestselling rosca, a wreath-shaped Panamanian bread.
Barrios De Nimbley developed a passion for the bread when she tried hunting down an authentic rosca for Christmas when she and Nimbley first moved to New York City in 2013. She couldn’t find one and settled on a Mexican-style version instead.
“It’s sad that there was no Panamanian bread,” Nimbley, 42, said in Spanish. “It wasn’t what we wanted, but that’s what there was.”
Her dedication to perfecting the recipe got serious in 2019 when Nimbley began culinary school. (He’s now a chef at the Aman New York hotel in addition to baking at Nimbley.) In a notebook, the couple cataloged tweaks to ingredients like the flour and water until they landed on something that was sweet and would stay soft for days, especially for shipping the bread.
During the holidays and Panamanian Mother’s Day in December, they have been inundated with hundreds of orders in New York and 35 other states.
Nimbley said that when Panamanians find the bakery they’re often in disbelief and have cried when they taste the bread, excited that finally, they have something that reminds them of home.
“This bakery came from the sacrifices and the sadness we had of not having our bread from Panama,” he said in Spanish. — NYT