Autana, a cafe in Ardmore, is a charming taste of Venezuela

There’s a wise saying in Venezuela that “there’s no party without tequeños.”

“If you don’t have them,” says Maria-José Hernández, ”you’ve failed!”

There is no failure to be festive at Autana, based on the platter of crispy delights of yeasted dough wrapped into thumb-size pastries around molten white cores of tangy Venezuelan Paisa cheese. Take a bite of that tequeño and pull that Paisa into one long strand before dipping into the cilantro aioli or the avocado-whipped chimichurri and devour the other end. You’ll be ruined for mozzarella sticks forever.

Then there were the empanaditas on the platter of three nibbles that launched the dinner tasting menu at this charming Venezuelan cafe in Ardmore. The miniature half-moon pockets of crunchy corn dough harbored a variety of fillings, from tangy shredded beef or chicken to the fantastic “domino” combo of black beans and cheese. They were as delicately crisp and flavorful as any empanadas I’ve had, and I’ve had many.

But I’d never yet had the pleasure of a mandoca, the sweet-and-savory fritters of plaintain, corn, and queso that Hernández says are her favorite among Autana’s starters. They remind her vividly of the family’s ancestral town of Maracaibo, near Colombia and the Caribbean Sea, where plantains are a major part of that region’s cuisine.

“We’d visit every two weeks and my dad’s mother would make the best,” said Hernández, 33. “I knew every time we visited they would be fresh from the fryer, and they were her form of love for us.”

That sense of family warmth is everywhere at Autana, whose 34 seats are tucked inside the cozy basement of a building across from the Ardmore train station (right behind and below the Maido! supermarket). That this subterranean space could be so appealing, its barrel-shaped white brick ceiling strung with festive lights, the former coffee shop now warmed with blue walls and pendant globe lamps, is no accident. Hernández was an architect in Colombia before coming in late 2017 to join her parents in Montgomery County, where they’d moved to help relatives open another restaurant.

Maria-José's father, co-owner and chef Levi Hernández, 65, is an accomplished cook who catered out of their home in Venezuela as a side hustle to his work as a civil engineer. The political turmoil of the Hugo Chávez era, however, persuaded him and his wife, María-Elena Urribarri, to move to the United States for other opportunities in 2017.

Levi ended up working at Vernick Coffee, where he was affectionately known as the “Juice Doctor” because he was responsible for the robust juice program at the breakfast and lunch kiosk run by Greg Vernick and the Four Seasons at the Comcast Technology Center. “He was an absolute pleasure to work with” and an essential part of the opening crew, says then-chef de cuisine, Drew Parassio, who always looked forward to Levi’s turn to cook staff meal: “Arepas with all the fixings ... these were the special days.”

Every day is arepa day now at Autana, where the griddled corn cakes come sandwiched around a wide range of classic fillings. My favorites include the sweet-and-savory heartiness of pabellón (shredded beef, black beans, cheese, and sweet plantains) or the Reina Pepiada, whose chicken salad is richly greened with mayo and avocado.

It’s been a long but steady journey for the Hernández family to get to the point of this sit-down restaurant. They began as a pop-up in August 2020, selling take-out meals upstairs in the Ardmore Station Cafe where Maria-José had been a server for three years. Her father had been laid off by the Four Seasons due to the pandemic shutdown earlier that spring. And when Maria-José proposed the idea of a collaboration with her dad, he enthusiastically agreed: “Let’s do it!”

They began small, with just four menu items, two Instant Pots, and a borrowed walk-in freezer from the cafe. They sold out their first weekend’s worth of take-out meals and never looked back. It wasn’t until July of 2022, however, that they took over the coffee shop space downstairs and began to serve diners inside in earnest. The business still revolves around breakfast and lunch, with good coffee from Elixr, including an espresso shot poured directly over two squares of intense 60% Carenero Venezuelan dark chocolate. I’d down one of those (or the layered Bombón with condensed milk and lime zest) with a croissant or a warm cachito roll stuffed with diced ham and Swiss cheese.

But lunch is really Autana’s sweet spot to date, where natural light still brightens the cafe’s tables as they hum with office workers and shoppers on a break from nearby Suburban Square who munch through a hearty patacón made from two crisp-but-delicate planks of fried green plantains sandwiched around tender pulled pork, shredded tuna, beef, or chicken. There are big bowls of simple but satisfying soups: cumin-y lentil, vivid orange pumpkin, or the creamy chicken or shrimp chupes thickened with potato.

Autana’s budding dinner business — three nights a week so far — has an optional four-course tasting menu for $60 a person that is a good way to sample the widest range of Levi’s repertoire of polished home cooking. The trio of traditional bites (tequeños, empanaditas, mandocas) to start the meal is followed by a soup course, entree, and dessert.

We also explored some of the other appetizers on a la carte menu: a trio of mini patacónes, a tuna tartare bright with sesame oil, lime juice, cilantro, and leeks, and the Caribbean twist of tostones to scoop it up. Some tasty beef meatballs were vibrant with garlicky soffrito.

The entrees hew close to the tradition of slow-cooked comfort dishes. But they also showed some logistical growing pains. I loved the layered savor of the baked costillitas pork ribs cooked in orange juice, wine, and spices — but they weren’t fully reheated when they arrived. Same for the asado negro, whose eye of round medallions were cooked in a sweet-and-sour brew of wine and papelón unrefined sugar cane with olives. But the meat itself was not particularly tender, bordering on dry.

We had far better luck with what is essentially the national flag of Venezuelan dishes, the Pabellón Criollo platter of shredded beef in zesty, sofrito-powered tomato gravy, which came alongside white rice, a fan of sweet maduros, and a big bowl of black beans simmered with cumin, oregano, and bay. A delicate but juicy skewer of salmon, its flavor bolstered by a tangy turmeric-yogurt marinade that nods to the Lebanese influence on Latin American cooking, was a sleeper hit that showed the satisfying potential here to embrace more dishes that get cooked to order, to complement Autana’s core of slow-stewed classics.

Manager and head server Daniela Sillie, Hernández’s cousin, moved from Germany to help at Autana, and she was a charming presence, not only guiding us through the menu, but swiftly making things right when there were slipups.

When it came to dessert, however, there were no missteps. Pastry is Maria-José's passion, and she turned out a satisfying selection of Venezuelan classics, from a rum-kissed quesillo (intentionally firmer than other flan varieties), a meringue-topped tres leches in a mason jar, and a tart key lime pie. My favorite was the regal Marquesa de Chocolate that layered crunchy Puig Maria biscuit cookies high between densely rich ganache infused with 72% Franceschi Venezuelan chocolate.

Simple, homey, satisfying, and traditionally Venzuelan. That marquesa, like Autana itself, is ready for the party.

4 Station Rd., Ardmore, 484-416-5843; autanapa.com

Coffee and lunch menu served Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner served Thursday through Saturday, 5-9 p.m., Sunday until 8 p.m.

BYOB.

There are several gluten-free options.

Not wheelchair-accessible. There are stairs down at entrance.