Many chefs dream of opening a restaurant in their own name, generally after years of hard work in the kitchen. Julio Pagan’s daughter, Adryana, now has one at age 12.
Adryana’s Latin American & Italian Fusion is the newest restaurant owned and operated by Pagan, a veteran chef and restaurateur, who has cooked in and run restaurants in Tampa and Brandon. Though this isn’t Pagan’s first venture with his signature fusion cooking on the menu, he’s running this restaurant with a brand-new energy.
Before opening Adryana’s, Pagan took an eight-month hiatus from the business. His motivation was nearly shot.
“I wasn’t gonna come back to the restaurant (business),” Pagan said. “I was done. I was just tired.”
His fiancée of one year, Reina Flores, helped him rekindle his passion for cooking. Around that time, Bella Mare owner Franco Dragonetti — also a friend of Pagan’s — was looking to sell his downtown Plant City restaurant.
Pagan’s biggest inspiration this time around is his daughter, whom he said caught the cooking bug at an early age and never lost her passion for it. Naming the restaurant after her just seemed right for him, and he said she will soon be in there regularly to “help” Pagan out and learn more about the restaurant business.
“She’s been in the kitchen with me since she was a little girl,” Pagan said. “She loves the kitchen, she loves the food. She’s a big critic. She always wanted her own restaurant and I told her I was gonna give it to her, and that’s what we did…we’re gonna have some fun and make some good plates.”
The menu, Pagan said, was designed to offer “something for everyone” in Plant City. They’ve got devil crabs, a local favorite, available for lunch and a strip steak with garlic shrimp, spinach and fried green tomatoes for dinner. They’ve got empanadas, Italian pasta, classic kids menu fare and tea for southerners and northerners alike.
The fusion elements of Pagan’s cooking aren’t always obvious at a glance, but that’s because they’ll present themselves at taste. The fried green tomatoes, for example, are coated with a blend of parmesan cheese, panko and Italian bread crumbs. Pagan’s yellow rice contains elements borrowed from rice pilaf, classic Latin rice and paella, which gives it a unique flavor.
“The way I cook, I like to put every culture in one,” Pagan said. “I put a little bit of South American, Italian, Spanish, all-American cuisine, put it all in fusion. You can tell when you try the food. All the flavors, they’re different — they’re exploding.”
The restaurant offers a $9.99 lunch special, in which one can order the yellow rice and black beans with pulled pork, fried pork or Pagan’s signature Coco Rico Chicken, and a $39.99 Thursday “date night” special with a dash of teamwork — the restaurant partnered with its next-door neighbor, Brick City Bricks, to give parents a fun place to drop their kids off while they enjoy a meal for two together.
Though the storefront at 115 E. Reynolds St. has seen its fair share of turnover in recent years, Pagan and Flores are hoping Adryana’s will stick around for the long haul and bring more people to downtown Plant City.