After 20 years of waiting to open his own restaurant, chef Alejandro Eusebio has finally made that dream a reality with Amiguita, a new home-style Afro-Caribbean restaurant and wine bar in Silver Lake. Eusebio described the opening as a longtime project and said people from across Los Angeles have already been making their way to the restaurant.
At Amiguita, you won’t find a set list of traditional dishes. Instead, Eusebio keeps things fresh by changing the menu often, bringing in what he called “new flavors, with traditional ingredients standing out alongside a personal, creative twist.”
Chef Eusebio told The LA Local his philosophy or experimentation as we ate one of Amiguita’s most popular dishes: plantain gnocchi with winter butternut squash sauce, Nigerian coconut curry, oyster mushrooms and pepitas.
“When playing with this particular dish, I basically wanted to do something Caribbean, but not necessarily fully Latin. I experimented a lot with it from the first day we had it here, but today is a lot different,” he said enthusiastically.
The plantain and coconut curry balanced the sweetness of the butternut squash. The plate came with a side of short ribs that were so tender they melted in your mouth.
After that, Eusebio brought out asopao, a hearty rice stew with influences from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The dish had an enticing aroma of shrimp and saffron rice, along with olives, grilled lemon slices, scallions, mussels and beans.
“[It’s] very close to a paella, but it’s not really a paella, some flavors incorporated here is beer. We cook a lot with beer instead of wine, using pigeon peas, gandules as the beans,” Eusebio said.
The verdict: a mouthwatering Caribbean seafood dish with buttery shrimp and velvety mussels.
Beverage Director Mara Herbkersman — known from the now-closed Ruby Fruit, a “strip mall wine bar for the sapphically inclined,” — works alongside him, offering Caribbean beers, creative cocktails, and unique nonalcoholic drinks.
“Our goal is to create a welcoming space where the community feels comfortable with new culinary experiences that are maybe less familiar than other traditional concepts,” Eusebio said.
Community support in Silver Lake has been tremendous for Amiguita. Eusebio said that, in particular, the Dominican and Black communities have been major supporters, with many telling him that they have commuted from other parts of LA County to visit the restaurant.
“Amiguita represents my journey, grounded in my Dominican roots but shaped far beyond that as a starting point. It blends the many lived cultural experiences in my journey to and in Los Angeles,” Eusebio said.
