Empanada with shredded chicken ($5) is served with Aleida’s housemade sauce.
DINING FEATURE
From left: Benito Briceno, Aleida Biagiotti, Maria Leon and Augusto Leon own Aleida’s Latin Food.
Cachapa Original is served with shredded pork, queso de mano, nata and white cheese ($15.95).
PHOTOS BY EDDIE HARBOUR COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSAPER
ITALIANHERITAGE The father of Aleida’s Latin Food namesake, Aleida Biagiotti, is Italian so, in addition to Latin American food, the menu also features a handful of Italian dishes such as the house special. • Pasta Especial Aleida’s: Mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic oil, spinach, red onion, white wine, shrimp or salmon, and garlic bread ($17.99)
Aleida’s Latin Food Cedar Park food truck adds brick-and-mortar with Venezuelan fare W hen Maria and Augusto Leon moved to BY EDDIE HARBOUR
kitchen of 5 or 5:30 a.m. “But it’s really fresh, homemade, and people know when they eat it,” Maria Leon said. “They realize it’s really fresh, and people love that.” For Biagiotti and Briceno, who have worked in restaurants in the U.S., Venezuela and Spain, building the menu meant showcasing and drawing in uence from dishes such as pabellon criollo. In addition to o ering a traditional pabellon plate with a choice of chicken, beef or pork, black beans, plantains, rice and nata—a Venezuelan-style cream— Aleida’s also o ers its own take on the dish. Aleida’s layers in the basic elements, sans rice, into a handheld arepa—which resembles a Mexican-style gordita—or stu ed inside a cachapa—a shareable, pancake-like vessel made from fresh corn and folded like an omelet. “It’s the national dish,” said Briceno and Augusto Leon simultaneously of pabellon.
Aleida’s Latin Food 2011 Little Elm Trail, Ste. 106, Cedar Park 512-551-2104 https://aleidas.com Hours: Mon.-Thu., Sat. 9 a.m.-8 p.m.; Fri. 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun. 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Austin two years ago, they reunited with their cousins, Aleida Biagiotti and Benito Briceno, and from there, Aleida’s Latin Food was born. “Benito was working in a restaurant, and Aleida was working in another restaurant, and we started talking and said, ‘We can do a restaurant,’” Maria Leon said. “But we started with the food truck.” Opened two years ago, the food truck still operates at 602 S. Bell Blvd., Cedar Park. Then, in 2021, the two couples added a brick-and-mortar location and with it, an expanded menu of favorites from across Latin America, but focused on their familial home of Venezuela. “We use natural ingredients, and we make the food every day; we don’t leave it in the fridge for two, three weeks,” Maria Leon said. That commitment to fresh means a start time in the
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