The Uechi brothers have a very fraternal relationship with entrepreneurship and gastronomy. Carolina's story begins in 2012, when she opened her restaurant “La Cocina de Caro”, 1 where her father and uncles were her first partners, and a couple of years later in Kilo, a different steakhouse that has given her prestige within of Peruvian cuisine.
Pepe Uechi's story is different, it began on a soccer field and continued on another green field: the Peruvian jungle.
“I studied at La Unión and at AELU I did athletics and soccer, I was part of the club team and I was on the U-15 and U-16 national team,” says Pepe, who at 30 years old still practices this sport.
At the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru he studied industrial design and specialized in sustainable design, dedicating himself especially to social enterprises, those that led him to fall in love with the green lung of the planet.
He started doing education and real estate design projects there with his partners and together they found an opportunity to develop coffee from a coffee roasting machine that could run on solar energy. This is how Café Compadre began, in 2015, in Satipo, Junín, a coffee company that seeks to empower small coffee growers through an economic model that allows producers to be part of the value chain of Peruvian coffee, a high-quality product. value but does not generate fair benefits for those who plant it.
The world of coffee
Pepe and his group presented this idea to an incubation program, with the goal of providing solar technology to coffee farmers, starting with one from the native Asháninka community. “The idea was to ensure fair payment so that they are profitable through a brand.” The producers were the 'compadres' to whom this company began to provide training to obtain a better quality input, which would later impact specialty coffee.
The one they sell under the Café Compadre brand is grown between 1,200 and 1,800 meters above sea level organically and in three different flavor profiles. Thanks to the development of the brand, they have been able to incorporate new partners, enable a virtual store and give tips on social networks to talk about the world of coffee.
In 2018, Pepe went to do a master's degree in economics and coffee sciences at the Università degli Studi de Udine, in northeastern Italy, where he arrived with a new idea.
“I knew a lot about specialty coffee shops and something that I saw was missing in Lima was that I couldn't find coffee shops with a good gastronomic proposal,” explains Pepe.
It is then that he calls on his sisters, Carolina for culinary matters and Diana for logistical and marketing issues; and together they started Café Comadre in August 2022, very close to the AELU soccer fields and in a location so large that they decided to take advantage of it to do something else.
Appetizing letter
“And what is it like working with your sisters?” is the message they published on Café Comadre's Instagram account, along with a photo of the three who died of laughter during the local white march and of Dan Dan Burger , the brand they developed to offer Carolina Uechi's signature burgers. . In its location in the Pueblo Libre district, these two brands coexist in an environment in which contact with nature is perceived in the birds that walk on the terrace and the dogs that come to this pet-friendly cafeteria.
Comadre's menu has a variety of hot and cold coffees, drinks with matcha tea, artisan empanadas and sandwiches (an option is smoked and flambéed elomito with pisco or bondiola ham), dishes with a Nikkei touch (there is oriental bacon, in slow cooking, the obachan recipe, with a creamy puree and rice; or the roast beef with crispy garlic, noisette butter and fine herbs). There are also poke salads, glazed wings (with teriyaki sauce, honey mustard and BBQ sauce) and desserts: cheesecake, carrot cake and chocolate cake, among others.
Among Dan Dan's burgers you can order the classic ones (Angus beef with cheddar cheese; in BBQ sauce with gouda cheese; or with fried egg, fried banana and Cajamarquino cheese) or the special ones, such as the Dan Dan with bacon, crispy onion and cheddar sauce or Veggie, made from lentils. They also have sausages, UFC (Umami Fried Chicken) and crispy chicken, among others, which are accompanied with French fries (the classic ones or those with melted cheese, crispy bacon and gravy sauce) or fried sweet potato.
coffee culture
Since they relied on Nesst Perú, a fund for entrepreneurs with Peruvian capital to promote local ventures, Café Compadre has not stopped growing. “They gave us support and a mentor to position the brand, have more presence and a place to sell,” says Pepe, who is grateful for the good response from the public, especially among the neighbors, many from the Nikkei community who, although He is not so fond of coffee, he always recognizes a good coffee.
“The coffee market is small in Peru compared to other countries, but it is growing greatly in normal and specialty coffee shops,” adds Pepe, who says that when they do open coffee tastings, many people sign up as soon as they sign up. in the first hours of launching the call. “We have had to enable three schedules.” They currently work with Satipo coffee and this year they plan to include other Tingo María producers.
Although Carolina studied administration, Pepe industrial design and Diana fashion design, the three siblings have found in the kitchen a way to follow in the footsteps of their cooking aunts, with love in preparation as an ingredient that cannot be missing. Café Compadre and Café Comadre are an example of the way they approach everything they set out to do: with a lot of passion and responsibility that comes together with that bond they have with their community.
Note:
1. Enrique Higa Sakuda, Peruvian Japanese Association, “ The kitchen of Carolina Uechi ,” Discover the Nikkei, October 25, 2013.
© 2023 Javier García Wong-Kit
