Fishtown’s ‘Pastelillo lady’ is opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant

Amaryllis Rivera-Nassar, who goes by Amy, is a Philadelphia-born boricua known for her food pop-ups featuring pastelillos. For the uninitiated, pastelillos are Puerto Rican-style crispy turnovers with flavors like guava barbecue and spicy ground pork chile. She offers traditional fillings like shredded chicken or beef but her new flavor combinations, including vegan options like soy chorizo and potato, set her apart.

We are meeting on la isla for the first time after connecting in Pennsylvania as diasporicans (Puerto Ricans living outside of the archipelago) and as I arrive, I see her holding up a brown bag of fritters. The first thing she says as she greets me is “I hope you’re hungry!”

She’s in Puerto Rico on a mission — to get inspiration for her latest endeavor, Amy’s Pastelillos Puerto Rican Kitchen. The takeout restaurant is set to open on March 7 at 2001 Memphis St. in Fishtown. Inspired by the colorful streets of Old San Juan, the corner spot with its bright pink and white facade is impossible to miss.

Her signature pastelillos will be on the opening menu with fillings like bacalao guisado (stewed codfish) and truffle mushroom and cheese. You can also expect comforting dishes like pollito, a bowl of stewed chicken served with rice, fried plantains, and salad. Vegetarians and meat eaters alike can enjoy plantain nachos with pineapple pico, jalapeño, cilantro, mayo-ketchup, and La Parchita, her Puerto Rican-style hot sauce.

In a city with one of the largest communities of Puerto Ricans outside of the island and a substantial Latino population, her cooking resonates with locals, who often share memories of home with Rivera-Nassar.

“My customers have become friends. It’s humbling. I’m grateful for them showing up with kind words, stories, and laughs. I’ve heard so many stories about how important food is to our culture, and our families,” Rivera-Nassar said.

Amy’s Pastelillos was born after Rivera-Nassar left a marketing career to be a full-time mom. Months after her second daughter was born, she began selling pastelillos and never returned to corporate life. “I lost my mom and was trying to work through my grief. [Cooking] became a way to find myself again, and remember my mom, who was a longtime cook,” Rivera-Nassar said.

Unfortunately, she has no written recipes from her mom. But through trial and error, she’s pieced them together and is writing them down for her children and nephews in the hopes of honoring her sazón and, most of all, to keep her mother’s memory alive.

She recalls nights paging through cookbooks and testing recipes with her family. The encouragement from her husband led her to ask one of the owners of Garage Fishtown if she could pop up at their bar for a night. People kept asking her to return but she wasn’t ready to commit to building a business.

“It was a hustle and I treated it that way. Growing up you always had your sorullito and your pastelillo lady, so I thought, let me just sell them on the side,” Rivera-Nassar recalls.

The turning point was when an FYI Philly reporter approached her. The day the interview aired, she remembers being bedridden with COVID and having lost her sense of taste and smell, all while her phone was blowing up with messages. She panicked. “If it doesn’t come back, how am I going to cook?” Rivera-Nassar said.

She no longer considers pastelillos a hustle. After many collaborations, a residency at the Mural City Cellars taproom, and a booth at Christmas Village, the business is growing. She’s hired staff and plans to use the kitchen to prep for catering and events. However, she’s mindful about being a mother first and foremost.

The restaurant will be open Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., a schedule that allows her to maintain some of the flexibility of the popup model. “I grow at the rate that my children grow. I don’t want to be tied to a traditional restaurant and never be home,” said Rivera-Nassar.

Pastelillos are her specialty, but she’s expanded her repertoire to include sopa de fideo (chicken noodle soup), pastelón (plantain lasagna), and more. Most recently, she’s been trying to recreate her mom’s sopa de bola, a soup made with plantain dumplings.

“It was the comfort food of my household. I’ve been trying to make it by following nostalgic flavors. It’s been fun but also emotional and frustrating to get right. I make it thinking about my mom,” said Rivera-Nassar.

Her food isn’t necessarily about technique, it’s about how it makes you feel. For many Puerto Ricans who have been away from home for a long time, it elicits the nostalgia of family home cooking — a meaningful expression of who we are and where we come from.