When Maria and Augusto Leon moved to Austin two years ago, they reunited with their cousins, Aleida Biagiotti and Benito Briceno, and from there, Aleida’s Latin Food was born.

“Benito was working in a restaurant, and Aleida was working in another restaurant, and we started talking and said, ‘We can do a restaurant,’” Maria Leon said. “But we started with the food truck.”

Opened two years ago, the food truck still operates at 602 S. Bell Blvd., Cedar Park. Then, in 2021, the two couples added a brick-and-mortar location and with it, an expanded menu of favorites from across Latin America, but focused on their familial home of Venezuela.

“We use natural ingredients, and we make the food every day; we don’t leave it in the fridge for two, three weeks,” Maria Leon said.

That commitment to fresh means a start time in the kitchen of 5 or 5:30 a.m.

“But it’s really fresh, homemade, and people know when they eat it,” Maria Leon said. “They realize it’s really fresh, and people love that.”

For Biagiotti and Briceno, who have worked in restaurants in the U.S., Venezuela and Spain, building the menu meant showcasing and drawing influence from dishes such as pabellon criollo.

In addition to offering a traditional pabellon plate with a choice of chicken, beef or pork, black beans, plantains, rice and nata—a Venezuelan-style cream—Aleida’s also offers its own take on the dish.

Aleida’s layers in the basic elements, sans rice, into a handheld arepa—which resembles a Mexican-style gordita—or stuffed inside a cachapa—a shareable, pancake-like vessel made from fresh corn and folded like an omelet.

“It’s the national dish,” said Briceno and Augusto Leon simultaneously of pabellon.

Aleida’s Latin Food

2011 Little Elm Trail, Ste. 106, Cedar Park

512-551-2104

https://aleidas.com

Hours: Mon.-Thu., Sat. 9 a.m.-8 p.m.; Fri. 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun. 9 a.m.-3 p.m.