On a late September morning, Martín Mariani worked in the kitchen of his Argentine restaurant, EmpaNash, to fill an empanada order for a waiting customer.
The South Lake Tahoe establishment sits tucked away in Ski Marina Run, known for its boating facilities, food and shopping.
He began by putting a big scoop of ground beef, sautéed onions, bell peppers and chopped boiled eggs on a small disk of dough.
“It’s funny because everybody freaks out with the egg, but it’s such a part of the recipe. Grandmas in Argentina make sure that each empanada has a little bit of egg,” Mariani said.
He then used an empanada press to seal the dough before marking the borders with a letter that indicates the type of filling.
Finally, Mariani fried the empanada for about 9 minutes until it reached 165 degrees Celsius, or 329 degrees Fahrenheit. After scooping it out of the fryer, he put it in a red basket covered with parchment paper. Before serving, he made sure to include the sauces.
“We have some chimichurri sauce, criolla sauce, and that’s a big part of this. People love the sauces up here. We don’t serve them with sauces down in Argentina. We knew that we needed something and we started with the chimichurri sauce and, oh my God, people loved it,” he said.
Empanadas, a stuffed puff pastry, usually baked or fried, are common to many Latin American cultures. The filling usually consists of ground beef and onions seasoned with cumin and chili powder.
“It’s something that we are born with; empanadas and mates [a traditional South American infused herbal drink],” he said.
Mariani moved to South Lake Tahoe 20 years ago from his native Entre Ríos, Argentina. He would come to visit his sister and he not only fell in love with the area, but also his wife, Nash.
Making an empanada from scratch is hard work, but after years of making empanadas, it now takes him about a minute to make one before it goes to the fryer.
One summer, his mom came to visit and made him empanadas to take to work. That caught the attention and stomachs of his coworkers at Cascade Clothing Co. in Heavenly Village, where he worked at the time.
“And they were like ‘these are really good, we’ll buy them from her’ and so she ended up selling empanadas that summer to my coworkers and ended up really well. She ended up with 100 bucks, 1,000 bucks at the end of the summer and she was super happy,” he said.
After his mom returned home, his coworkers kept asking Mariani for empanadas. So he and his wife began thinking about opening a business.
“We really wanted to do it, so we got together with a bunch of friends and just cooked the whole weekend and came up with a name for the store. We had the idea of what we wanted to do, we just didn’t know how to,” he said.
They decided on EmpaNash.
The empanadas mostly follow his mom’s recipe with a few modifications, Mariani said.
“We changed a few ingredients just to make it more appealing to the market that we were going into. We didn’t want anything weird. We wanted something that all the flavors are familiar,” he said.
Soon after, the couple started selling at the local farmers market. Currently, EmpaNash has one location on Ski Run Blvd. in South Lake Tahoe and five employees.
Over time, the Marianis expanded the menu and now offer a variety of fillings, including chicken, cheese and ham, and bacon and potatoes.
EmpaNash also offers vegetarian options of spinach, mushrooms and corn.
Restaurant regular Ali Berberich ordered a bacon and potato breakfast empanada that morning.
“I work in the Ski Run Marina and this is my favorite little spot to come and get my lunch. I’ve been to South America and I love my empanadas, and I was very excited to find out we had a local empanada place in town,” she said.
Mariani said he is happy with how far the business has come and hopes to open a second location.
“We are looking for some place that is more constant and fluent than South Lake Tahoe. We love our place, but of course you know how seasonal [South Lake Tahoe] can be, and I think this product can be designed for a place like downtown Carson, Sacramento; I mean the possibilities are out there,” he said.