Mofongo Cafe Serves Hearty Caribbean Comfort Food in Berry Hill

When I talk about food that brings me back to New England, you probably imagine succulent lobster, fresh-caught haddock or fish and chips. Or maybe a medium iced regular from Dunkin’. You’re probably not thinking about cuisine from the Caribbean. But I grew up in a community north of Boston with a strong Dominican and Puerto Rican population, and so something about a hearty serving of generously seasoned shredded chicken or fried plantains or a nice crispy beef empanada brings me back north. I admit that’s strange since it’s the sort of food that probably brought a lot of first-generation migrants back to much warmer climates.

But I found nostalgia in Berry Hill. The area tucked between Wedgewood-Houston and Thompson Lane is packed with good food, eclectic businesses and colorful murals, and in that mix is a small teal building on a hill home to Mofongo Cafe, a family-run restaurant serving up hearty comfort food from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Those three Caribbean cuisines share a lot of similarities, says owner Dee Castillo. But the menu also reflects her family’s history of travel and immigration. Castillo and her family moved from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico when she was young, and her uncle — a chef at the restaurant for many years — is Dominican and Cuban. 

Castillo moved to Nashville in 2007 and says there wasn’t much of a Dominican, Cuban or Puerto Rican population. She had to cook at home or drive to Atlanta if she wanted any familiar fare.

“I used to grab my son on Sunday really early and just drive four hours to go eat in a restaurant,” says Castillo. “That was our Sunday trip.”

But she was getting tired of the lack of options. And while she was skeptical about how Nashville would receive a Caribbean restaurant like hers, she took the chance.

In 2017 she opened Mofongo Cafe — Merengue Cafe before a 2022 name change — and was surprised to have dozens of customers the first day. The restaurant served 60 people, to be exact. “I’m gonna remember that number until I die,” she says. It’s even more impressive given that this is Castillo’s second attempt at a restaurant — a previous endeavor circa 2013, called 809 Sports Bar and Restaurant, lasted about two years.

Like many restaurants, Mofongo Cafe is facing a staffing issue, worsened by a family emergency. So Castillo herself has been in the kitchen hours before the doors open at 11 a.m. She says it’s tricky to find chefs who can cook her food, particularly the Dominican portion of the menu.

That’s because there’s a comforting homemade quality to the food at Mofongo Cafe, and Dominican home cooking varies a lot. Castillo references a Dominican saying — “the flavor is on a person’s hands” — in explaining that difficult-to-describe X factor of cooking.

And of course it can be hard to find the right ingredients in Tennessee. Castillo is sure to bring back massive containers of dried Dominican oregano whenever she visits family abroad. (The Dominican variety has a very sharp scent that translates to richer flavors.)

When discussing Mofongo, we can’t ignore the eponymous dish, which is associated with Puerto Rico. Fried plantains are mashed with pork and garlic, assembled into a stately mound of flavor and topped with meat or seafood.

I also enjoy the sancocho — a type of meat-and-root-vegetable stew that can be found in a few Latin American countries under different names. The tender chicken falls apart easily, letting you pair it up with a chunk of soft yuca or carrot that absorbs a savory, fatty and herby broth.

While the cultures represented by Mofongo share many staple dishes, there are of course small variations (like the raisins in Cuba’s version of ropa vieja, a shredded beef dish). That translates to a large menu that mixes and matches from across the Caribbean.

The menu also changes a little bit every day, says Castillo, who features specials like oxtail on Fridays and goat on Saturdays. There’s always a selection of hearty meat mains and plenty of fried sides like maduros (extra-ripe plantains) that have just the slightest crisp at the edges and give way to a soft, sweet center.

Nashville still doesn’t have a big Dominican, Cuban or Puerto Rican population, but Castillo says Mofongo Cafe’s customer base has proven to be very diverse. 

She’s also still looking for ways to keep sharing her culture. In March, Mofongo unveiled a new, giant-size chair — the kind you can find around Puerto Rico — outside the restaurant. The chair was built by a member of the Amish community from Harstville, Tenn., and painted by Castillo and her family in the backyard.

The colorful chair — a Taíno chair, as Castillo calls it, after the Indigenous people of the Caribbean and ancestors of many Dominicans and Puerto Ricans — greets new customers and stands as a meeting point of the Caribbean and Tennessee. 

But before you can ponder all of that, the smell of braised beef and fried plantains will probably lure you in Mofongo’s doors.