After two years of selling empanadas at pop-ups and farmers markets, Paprika Catering is going brick-and-mortar in Waterbury. Jacqueline de Achaval and Jennifer McCabe-de Achaval will open an empanada shop at 44 Foundry Street in mid-October or early November.
Paprika will offer Argentinean-style baked empanadas for on-site dining as well as takeout. The menu will feature at least nine varieties made with local ingredients, including the Buenos Aires — a traditional steak, malbec and hard-boiled egg combo — and vegetarian and vegan options such as the Fall, with butternut squash, caramelized onion, walnuts and basil. Desserts inspired by de Achaval’s childhood in Argentina will also be available.
“It’s a growth opportunity,” de Achaval said. “We see good things coming up.”
Until now, the Waterbury couple have worked from Stowe Street Café, where they began hosting Wednesday pop-ups in October 2021. They’ve expanded to five or six events a week, including private catering and pop-ups at area businesses such as Caledonia Spirits and Shelburne Vineyard.
Earlier this year, they worked with Stowe Street Café owner Nicole Grenier to build a U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected commercial kitchen in the café’s basement. Paprika’s new space nearby — 20 feet closer to the couple’s house, McCabe-de Achaval said — was the longtime home of Aztlan Foods, which closed in the spring. It will also be USDA inspected, allowing Paprika to process meat for frozen empanadas that it hopes to sell to breweries, schools and other wholesale accounts.
“The opportunity came up for us to move into a space where we have more production time,” McCabe-de Achaval said. “The cherry on the sundae was that we could have this space in our community for guests to enjoy our empanadas right on-site.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Paprika Catering to Open Empanada Shop in Waterbury”
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2023.
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