Before Carlos Branger opened a restaurant, he threw dinner parties. He’d moved to Texas from the Andean region of Venezuela, near the Colombian border, and when friends came over he cooked the things he grew up eating — arepas stuffed with shredded beef, cachapas rolled off the griddle, queso blanco, the family recipes he’d carried north like a piece of luggage. The food disappeared before the evening did, and people kept asking where they could get more of it.
Dallas had Tex-Mex on every corner and excellent taquerias in every neighborhood, but the food of Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, and the Caribbean islands was essentially nowhere. On May 9, 2002, Branger opened Zaguán Latin Café and Bakery at 2604 Oak Lawn Avenue, and the dinner party never really stopped.
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