File: Daria Bishop
Maria Lara-Bregatta in 2023
Shortly after
Café Mamajuana landed a semifinalist nod on the prestigious James Beard Foundation Best New Restaurant list in 2022, chef-owner Maria Lara-Bregatta announced she was closing her Burlington restaurant to focus on catering, wholesale and private dining. Two years later, Lara-Bregatta confirmed she's getting back in the restaurant game.
The 31-year-old chef and her fiancé, Geovann Ventura, 32, plan to open a new version of Café Mamajuana in Colchester in December. The couple are working on renovating the restaurant space at 164 Porters Point Road, which was most recently occupied by the Guilty Plate Diner until it
closed last November. Lara-Bregatta said they'll keep "the classic 1950s booths, all the good stuff" but will refresh paint and fixtures and add art that celebrates the Dominican-Italian DNA the couple bring to their menu.
The pair are still "ironing out a schedule," Lara-Bregatta told
Seven Days, but she said they expect to focus primarily on a brunch-style menu that taps into "the diner-esque feel" of the restaurant and its history. She said the menu will likely offer her "own spin" on French toast, empanadas, sandwiches, burritos, doughnuts and dishes featuring plantains, such as her stuffed canoas.
File: Jordan Barry ©️ Seven Days
Brunch at Café Mamajuana in 2022
It will also include some Italian influences, particularly desserts and coffee. "It's a blend of all of my cultures," Lara-Bregatta said.
Ventura will add his expertise in Dominican-style smoked meats, such as churrasco. He will also work closely with Lara-Bregatta to manage the restaurant while continuing to run his own painting business part time.
Lara-Bregatta knows that many of her fans hope she'll serve dinner, but she's not sure whether that will work for their family, which includes a 3-year-old daughter. Juggling the needs of her then-infant in the post-pandemic staffing crunch was
the main reason she closed her original Café Mamajuana, the chef said.
It was really hard to "have a baby sucking at my tit while I was trying to run a restaurant," she recalled. With the couple's daughter now in preschool and Ventura partnering with her on the business, Lara-Bregatta said she feels like it will work better. "It's much more of a family affair this time around," she said.
During the break between restaurants, Lara-Bregatta also spent a month in Italy in fall 2023 filming Season 2 of Food Network's "
Ciao House," which premiered in mid-May of this year.
She was one of 12 chefs competing on the show and made it through three episodes.
Lara-Bregatta said she learned a lot from the experience and the cooking challenges. She believes that customers of the new Café Mamajuana will benefit from the techniques she mastered and new ingredients to which she was exposed.
"Television is a crock of shit," she said, "but it was truly life-changing and a joy to live in Italy for a month and learn from the masters."