November 2024

A year-long family sabbatical in New Orleans inspired a tasty enterprise that’s expanding across the Gulf Coast, with its newest location in one of the French Quarter’s most storied buildings.

– by Kim Ranjbar

– photos by Ellis Anderson

A few months ago, in the midst of another sweltering summer, Empanola opened just behind Jackson Square on St. Ann Street. This is the third New Orleans location for the family business, owned and operated by Jimena Urrutia, her husband Marcelo Garcia, brother Javier and his wife Giada Visicale.

“That [location] has been a pleasant surprise,” says Jimena. “I thought we were going to see mostly tourists, but there has been such big support from locals.”

The family team has grown since their early days serving up handmade empanadas filled with gumbo, ratatouille, and Boeuf Bourguignon at St. Roch Market over seven years ago. Living in New Orleans and making empanadas was a wish fulfilled for Jimena and her husband Marcelo.

They built a life together in Chile and had children, but ever since Jimena's time as an exchange student at Tulane University, she had longed to return.

“There was something about New Orleans that made me feel like I belonged,” she says. “I felt free to be very authentic here.”

In Chile, Marcelo had a public relations firm where he worked as a creative director, but after nearly a decade he confessed his career dissatisfaction to his wife. “He looked at me and said ‘I want to feel passionate about what I do and I don't feel it now.’”

Jimena suggested they take a sabbatical and live in New Orleans for a while and happily, Marcelo agreed. 

Packing up the family, they rented a house in the city and enrolled the kids at the Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans. Jimena studied to become a yoga teacher while Marcelo took English-speaking courses.  “He had a lot of time to cook and take care of the house,” says Jimena. “He's always been called to the kitchen, that's where his passion is.”

Their year-long sabbatical passed all too quickly and they didn’t want to return home to Chile, but their savings would only hold out so long. “I told him one morning that I dreamt we made empanadas, and he said ‘Yes, that makes sense,’” laughed Jimena. “We wanted to see someone walking with gumbo in their hand. We thought it was revolutionary, you know? To have gumbo in your hand without a spoon.” 

After a short stint vending at St. Roch Market and the now-defunct Auction House Market in the Warehouse District, Jimena’s brother Javier decided he wanted a piece of their empanada concept. Investing both time and money into Empanola, Javier proposed a way to streamline their meat pie-making, bringing uniformity to their shape and branding the flavor names onto each individual pie. “I love it because before we were hand-folding them and each one had a different shape,” says Jimena.

Subsequently, the family launched their first brick and mortar on Freret Street near Tulane University in 2018. Students and locals in the surrounding neighborhoods flocked to Empanola and business was booming. Not only were the creative, Latin-American by way of New Orleans meat pies delicious, they were incredibly affordable.

With flavors like chorizo Mexicana, crawfish etouffee, and pork-filled Asian dumplings, Empanola’s offerings guaranteed there was something for everyone. “I love that the empanada concept can satisfy vegetarians and pescatarians, we have everything for everyone except, unfortunately, gluten-free.”  

Three years later, Empanola opened a second location on Magazine Street in the Garden District, and just before the launch of their latest location on St. Ann Street, they built a commercial kitchen Uptown on Broadway. “We bought machinery from Italy and from Argentina, and now we have full capacity to make tons of empanadas! That was what allowed us to grow,” explains Jimena. 

With increased production capabilities, their empanada dreams have come into sharp focus with franchises opening up across the Gulf South. Over the past year, the family has launched a location in Biloxi, Mississippi with two more on the way in Port St. Lucie, Florida and Mobile, Alabama.

Back in New Orleans, the team is ramping up for Mardi Gras, endlessly perfecting their popular guava and cream cheese-stuffed king cake before the orders start flooding in. Jimena’s sister-in-law Giada Visicale is the master of dough and sweets at Empanola. “She's behind the king cake and the tiramisu, she has a very creative, sweet mind.” 

When she’s not spending time with her children or teaching yoga at Paradigm Gardens, Jimena enjoys dividing her time between the three locations, serving empanadas and getting to know their regular customers. “I feel that is what fuels our heart. I love to be in the shops and talk to customers and get their feedback. It's the best part of this whole experience.”

Locals history buffs will recognize the new Empanola location at 632 St. Ann Street as the historic home of preservationist Elizabeth Werlein, who fought efforts in the early 1900s to demolish the entire French Quarter. She also helped establish regulations that have made it a national architectural treasure.

Jimena says that when they first moved in and hadn’t noticed the plaque yet, they would go to the second floor and marvel at the elegance of the historic building.

“How beautiful it is to be in that space, surrounded by the historic French Quarter!” Jimena says. “It's a privilege to know the history behind the building – and an honor to be here.”

Empanola in the French Quarter is located at 630 St. Ann Street and is open daily from 8:30am to 8pm.

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