3 area restaurants serve arepas, other specialties
When the Milwaukee area finds it has three Venezuelan restaurants at once, it’s clear the food gods are sending us a message. And that message is: Have the arepas. They’re delicious. The sandwiches — of beef, pork or chicken, or black beans and plantains, stacked onto a split white-corn masa flatbread often with cheese and sauce — satisfy without weighing down. (Note to the gluten-wary: The flatbread the restaurants make is naturally gluten free.) Milwaukee has had a Venezuelan restaurant or two over the years, but not this many at one time. It’s a consequence of the South American country’s political and economic crises (including shortages of food, water and medicine, and frequent power blackouts).
Those crises have led to an exodus of citizens by the millions from the onceprosperous nation, setting out to start anew in neighboring countries as well as in the U.S.
Although it’s not huge, Wisconsin’s Venezuelan population has doubled in the past decade or so, after nearly tripling the previous decade.
About 2,000 native-born Venezuelans live in Wisconsin, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That’s double the estimate from 2010 and more than four times the estimated population in 2000. Venezuela’s loss is our gain.
All of these restaurants offer soul-satisfying Venezuelan sandwiches and other dishes, but each is different. See what they have to offer:
Arepanitas