Del Campo
A little girl slides her fingers along the glass display case, pointing to what she wants for lunch.
“I want that one and that one,” she says on this crisp Saturday afternoon at Del Campo Empanadas in north Fort Worth. Choosing an empanada filled with pepperoni and another stuffed with Nutella, she says she likes their unusual shapes — one is triangular, the other oblong — and the fact that “one’s for lunch, one’s for dessert.”
Over the past few years, scenes like this have become more common, as empanadas have started to play a broader role in Fort Worth’s culinary vernacular. They’ve long been a mainstay of eateries and bakeries near and far, small and large, but several new and newish area restaurants — Del Campo, Lola’s Cuban Food in southwest Fort Worth, Tinie’s Mexican Cuisine in the South Main area, newly opened Bissy’s in Pantego, and Boca 31 on the south side, among them — are giving empanadas top billing on their menus, helping breathe new life into these flaky, buttery staples of Latin American food and culture.
Crystal Wise
“When I opened my first restaurant here, most people didn’t know what they were,” says Andres Meraz, the chef and owner of Boca 31, a charmingly tiny restaurant in the hospital district that specializes in housemade empanadas. “I usually tell people they’re like turnovers. People here know what turnovers are, but empanadas — that’s still a new type of food here.”
Crystal Wise
It’s believed that empanadas originated in Portugal and Galicia, Spain, in the 1500s. Over time, numerous variations emerged, each prepared differently, depending on the country of origin. In Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia, fried corn dough is used to house fillings such as pork and chicken, and, on the sweet side, native fruits.
In Bolivia, they’re baked using a sweetened flour dough and a stew-like filling comprised of meat, potatoes, carrots, and peas; they’re often called salteñas. In Peru, they’re both baked and fried and filled with creole ingredients such as a spicy chicken stew called aji de gallina.
At Boca 31, a hidden gem in the hospital district run by Andres Meraz and his wife Marlene, empanadas are prepared in fryers, in the style of those closely associated with Puerto Rico, where they’re sometimes called pastelillos.
A California-raised chef who has worked in kitchens around the world, Meraz says he has been greatly inspired by the empanadas he had while working as a chef in Miami. “Miami has a huge Puerto Rican population and a great food scene that goes along with it,” he says. “You can find empanadas on just about every street corner there.”
When he and his wife moved to North Texas in 2014, they wanted to bring with them the flavors they had come to love during their time in Miami. The two opened the first location of Boca 31 in Denton in 2016, devoting their menu to Latin street food. A subsequent location opened in Keller; then, in 2022, the pair opened a Fort Worth location in a tiny spot on Eighth Avenue. (The Denton location was destroyed in a fire, and Meraz closed the Keller store last year to focus on the Fort Worth branch.)
While Meraz serves empanadas in commonly popular flavors such as ground beef and chicken, he also utilizes his extensive — and impressive — culinary background (he’s cooked at two Ritz Carltons and a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain called Akelarre) to develop his own unique flavors, such as guava and cream cheese and chile verde stew; the latter is based on a recipe developed by his mother.
Crystal Wise
Andres Meraz, owner of Boca 31.
“I see empanadas as a vessel for creativity,” he says. “They’re like tacos. You can put anything in them. You can experiment with different flavors and different flours and ways of cooking them. I think that’s why they’ve been popular for so long. They’re so versatile; it’s easy to put your own spin on them.”
In countries like Argentina and Uruguay, empanadas are typically baked. This is the style you’ll find at Del Campo Empanadas, a family-run empanada shop in north Fort Worth. Opened in 2000 by couple Andrea Cacho and Leo Gigante — who originally hail from Buenos Aires — and their children, Sebastian, Rebeca, and Lautaro, the small cafe offers a dozen permanent and rotating varieties of Argentina-style empanadas in both sweet and savory options.
Their cafe resembles a doughnut shop: People peer at the empanadas from behind a glass case, trying to decide what flavors they want: broccoli and corn, shrimp and cheese, pepperoni, or banana-Nutella.
Each empanada is shaped differently, depending on the flavor, and if you order more than one, you’re given a paper menu with images of the empanadas so you don’t get them mixed up.
Their signature empanada is “Argentine-style,” a mix of ground beef, eggs, raisins, onions, bell peppers, and green olives.
All of Del Campo’s empanadas are served with a side of wildly addicting chimichurri sauce, a bright green sauce made with parsley, garlic, olive oil, and other ingredients; it’s a staple of Uruguayan and Argentinian food.
The north Fort Worth location has been so successful, the family recently opened a second store in Flower Mound.
“People of all ages and races are discovering us and what we’re doing,” says Lautaro Gigante, one of the owners. “A lot of customers grew up on empanadas, and they remind them of where they’re from. Others are just discovering them for the first time and making their own memories here.”
Boca 31
1000 Eighth Ave.
Ste. 101, boca31.com
Del Campo Empanadas
10724 North Beach St.
