MI QUERENCIA KAREN .

The kitchen at Mi Querencia

The arepa is the starting point: a round cake of pre-cooked corn flour, baked, split open and filled, a staple food in Venezuela. Alongside it come empanadas made from the same corn dough and the patacón pisao, where two flattened, fried slices of plantain hold the filling instead of bread. Then there are tostas, a poke bowl in a Latin American reading, and picoteo — the Venezuelan word for pasapalos, the small things you share. What goes with it is usually a batido, a shake made from tropical fruit.

That almost none of this needs wheat follows from the ingredients: corn and plantain instead of flour. The house deliberately goes further and makes its sauces entirely in-house and gluten-free too, a point Karen makes herself. You can flag an intolerance and get advice on what is in the dishes. Vegan and vegetarian plates are a fixed part of the menu, and the arepa comes in a vegan version as well.

Tartas by Karen

The other half of the house is the pastry kitchen, and it runs under Karen's own name. Besides the cake for the afternoon, this is where cakes to order are made, up to elaborately modelled figurative ones, along with cupcakes, decorated biscuits, jellies and desserts. For celebrations and company parties the house sets up whole mesas dulces, sweet tables, and it takes larger catering orders. The rule of the kitchen applies here too: gluten-free and vegan are planned for, not a special request.

What querencia means

The name is not an accident. In Spanish, querencia describes the affection someone feels for people, for a craft or for a place — and at the same time the place you keep coming back to because of it. That is exactly how the house explains its name, and exactly how it describes itself: as a home away from home. It fits better than any category. Mi Querencia is not a grand restaurant but a small, owner-run address at moderate prices that takes its kitchen seriously.