Window Shopper

Taste of Dominican Republic comes to Bailey Avenue

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Riverdale resident Henry Gonzalez vividly remembers the sights, smells, sounds and, above all, the tastes of growing up in the Dominican Republic. He called on those experiences to launch an elegant Latin-American restaurant called Tilila at 3468 Bailey Ave. earlier this summer.

Sitting at his establishment’s bar on a recent afternoon, Mr. Gonzalez recounted the inspiration for one of the items on the menu, which offers mostly Dominican food, but some Cuban and other Caribbean dishes, too.

“It’s very popular in the Dominican Republic,” he said of riki taki, a kind of hamburger topped with grilled tomato and a fried egg.

“Back in the old days when I was a kid, the guys used to come around at 7, 8 in the morning — ‘riki taki!’” the restaurateur continued, imitating their melodious cry. “They would fry the egg right there and make you the sandwich right there from scratch.” 

Tilila offers a variety of comfort food along those lines, from riki taki ($12) and Cuban sandwiches ($14) to slow-smoked ribs ($17) and churrasco ($26). 

It’s all served inside a spacious, colorful room that Mr. Gonzalez and his wife Kenia Castillo — who also run the tapas restaurant Tin Marin on Riverdale Avenue — intended to evoke the courtyard of a mid-century Dominican house. The outside is painted bright blue and white, an inside wall is covered with photos of U.S. and Latin American pop stars and the back wall has an evocative corrugated roof covering the kitchen. Mr. Gonzalez said the faded, red-checkered floor was inspired by the typical ambiance of a 1950s Cuban bodega, while the bar was decorated with New Orleans in mind.

The bar is open from noon to 4 a.m. seven days a week, catering to people craving a drink after work and other night owls. The kitchen is open from noon to 11 p.m. every day except Saturday, when it stays open until 1 a.m.

Mr. Gonzalez pointed out the bar’s sangria ($8) and mojito ($10) — which uses mavi, a drink made from a root that is popular in the Dominican Republic — as house specialties. He said even his own bartender will not tell him the secret ingredient to the “amazing” sangria, though.

Tilila, Henry Gonzalez, Shant Shahrigian
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