A taste of Argentina in Tijuana

For more than a decade, Cheripan has been bringing Argentine flavor to the city of Tijuana.

The restaurant, which will celebrate its anniversary in July, could be described as “A blend of Argentine cuisine adapted to Mexican taste meets an L.A. lounge”.

Since its founding in 2002, the concept has not died in this border town, where establishments can undergo as much flux as the border does.

It all started with Cordoban-born entrepreneur Juan Carlos Eguiluz’s simple vision of bringing the choripan, a popular South American chorizo sandwich garnished with chimichurri, to the city.

After opening a small but successful choripan shop in Tijuana’s La Recta avenue in 2002, he then built the full-scale restaurant with his ex-wife in Tijuana’s gastronomic district in 2005 and named it Cheripan — a play on the words che, a colloquial Argentine expression, and choripan.

“It was right for the moment,” Eguiluz, 55, said on a recent Friday night.

He had previously been living in Los Angeles before moving to Tijuana and came from a family of restaurateurs in Argentina.

“I can only recount a handful of fine-dining restaurants in Tijuana at that time,” he said, naming them on the fingers of one hand.

Cheripan — notable for its dim lighting, granite tables, dark wood accents and a vast collection of wines on display, since Eguiluz is also a wine enthusiast — features Argentine-style steaks, empanadas and, of course, the choripan, on its menu, at prices that Eguiluz says are “fair.” (Empanadas start at 30 pesos, $2)

Empanadas

Today, there are two additional Cheripan restaurants located in Tijuana’s Otay neighborhood and at the Galerias shopping mall. There are also now more Argentine restaurants in Tijuana than there are in San Diego.

Perhaps this can be credited to northern Mexico’s longstanding tradition of loving their beef just as much as the Argentines do.

“There were more cows in Argentina at one point than there were people,” remarked Eguiluz.

However, he has learned to adapt his asados specifically for his clientele.

“The Mexican loves to have his steak accompanied with something,” he said, which is why at Cheripan they are always served with side dishes, never by themselves like it is in Argentina.

He has also discovered the art of cooking with chile.

“I used to think Mexicans ate chile because they didn’t know how to add flavor to the food itself. Now I can cook with just about any type of chile; I was just speaking from a place of ignorance,” he said as he added a spoonful of the house-made habanero sauce into the ketchup saucer on the table.

Steaks and chile aside, the flavored martinis at Cheripan have at times out-shined the food at the restaurant in their popularity.

With 30-plus flavors that include cucumber, tamarind (the most popular) and its newest addition, marzipan, the presentation of the cocktails at Cheripan were a bit of a novelty to the region.

“We were the first to bring the shaker to the table,” he said of the cocktails, which are shaken and then served table-side for the guests, much in the same way the Caesar salad is prepared table-side at other Tijuana restaurants.

Overall, Cheripan has fit in well with the gastronomic reinvention that has taken place in Tijuana over the last decade, but he also credits their service as part of their success.

“There’s love in it … that Latin essence,” he said. For example, “if I put a glass of water on the table and go ‘Here’,” he demonstrated while looking disinterestedly away from the table, versus “Now if I put the glass on the table like this and go ‘Here’,” he said, this time with more gusto, “it makes all of the difference.”