Chef creates art in the kitchen at Fuentes Cafe

By Carlos Medrano Araujo
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

As soon as you enter you smell it on the air, it is the culinary spices and flavors. With concrete floor and white and green walls and wooden tables, Fuentes Café is a friendly space.

When the owner of Fuentes Cafe reopened his location in Cockeysville, his vision was to continue making dishes that mixed Italian and Mexican cuisine with his passion for art.

“The art is always in me, now I can make a dish that reflects the colors and textures,” Will Fuentes, Fuentes Café owner, said.

It is an immigrant’s dream to achieving his goals. But when these goals meet unexpected divergences, there is nothing left but to adapt. For Will Fuentes, that meant going from an arts graduate in El Salvador to owning his own restaurant and becoming a self-taught chef.

His dishes range from salads, pasta and burritos, to the popular fish tacos with Alaskan Pollock battered and deep fried, coleslaw, spicy tartar sauce, and served with pickled onions.

“I opened my first Fuentes Café in 2008, and by circumstances I don’t know, my leasing ended by 2016, and with the lease, the café,” Fuentes said. “Now, I have this new location, I take care of the opportunity and will do the best to keep forward.”

Fuentes fled El Salvador due to the armed conflict in 1991 seeking a better future.

“There were no opportunities for my art career, and the country was in middle of a war conflict, and I did not want to be part of,” Fuentes said. “The opportunity to migrate to the United States was there because of a friend, and I took it.”

As soon as Fuentes arrived, he had to learn a new art form: cooking. The love for paintings is now also reflected in each dish when he mixes the abundance of colors to create an experience for the palate–and the eyes–of his diners.

“I started as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant in West Virginia,” Fuentes said. “Then I moved to the Baltimore County area and I started to work for Italian restaurants, first I started prepping and with the time I became the cook.”

Fuentes said creating a new dish is a process, and customer satisfaction begins with that process. This is why he’s always meticulous with his dishes.

“When I came to this country, I didn’t have anyone here, I had to make my way,” Fuentes said. “The most important thing is always to stay focused and do things in the right spirit.”

Elsa Rivas supports her husband in his business, being the cashier and the one who dispatches the orders.

“There are good days, sometimes slow days, but the most important is not get discouraged,” Rivas said.

Fuentes Café has a good reputation: it has five stars from 17 reviews in Yelp. Even though his art is now mostly reflected in his dishes, Will Fuentes still finds time for his first passion.

“I haven’t lost the painting skills,” Fuentes said. “I spend most of my day in the restaurant. But when I go home, I always got inspired and take time and paint.”