Everything that chef-restaurateur Jezabel Carenga does has an air of elegance.
The chef-restaurateur has expanded her intimate, self-named bakery and tea house, Jezabel’s, into one that is renowned for selling rustic, fire-baked empanadas. And now, open fire cooking comes to the West Philly hotspot — a flame-filled experience, “Fuego Cocina Itinerante,” born of her Andes-Basque roots — allowing Carenga to bring her usual sense of grace to the primal, earthen elements of flame and the dynamics of communal dining.
“I believe that Jezabel’s represents my personal evolution as much as it does my creative and professional one,” says Carenga, an Argentine native. “That’s based on where I come from, where I’ve travelled, where I’m going, and where I am, now.”
Thinking about the teaming of the raw with the elegant in real life, Carenga discusses her grandmother, “a woman so beautiful at her very simplest and cleanest, with just face cream and lipstick,” who inspired much of what Jezebel has become as an artist and as a chef. “You don’t have to wear a Prada bag to be elegant.”
Since coming to Philadelphia in 2009 from the Argentine Northwest, Carenga considers herself fortunate in that she can combine many of her interests into one calling.
“Food, design, community and furniture making are the things I love, what I brought to Jezabel’s first iteration in Fittler’s Square. I’m intentional about everything I do and everywhere I go. When we moved to West Philadelphia, I designed every corner of the space, and built every piece of furniture, along with cooking and reaching out to everyone in the neighborhood. When we started making empanadas, here, there were no other empanada shops … or even that many chefs who featured empanadas.”
Making Jezabel into an open kitchen space, too, shows how Carenga creates intimacy with her dining family. “It’s a funny thing to say, but it is, as if, you are in someone else’s kitchen, your own kitchen, when you come here.”
When returning to the concept that is earthen and primal, Carenga is pleased. Nothing makes her feel more alive, she says, “than cooking with live, open fire… I’m 42 now, and I only want to put my time into what is most worthwhile for me. Something that brings out such passion in me, something so natural, is worthwhile. I can do this in 100-degree weather or 30-degree weather, and I’m happy. This is how I grew up cooking with my grandmother on brick and clay ovens.”
Fuego Cocina Itinerante’s relaxed luxury and exclusive experience will have a permanent home in a communally-focused, secret garden behind Jezabel’s space. But Carenga also sees her open flame fascination as a “traveling kitchen,” a movable feast that she can bring to events, parties, pop-ups and collabs with other chefs in other cities.
“This will always be a unique, curated experience,” says Carenga of her flame-forward meals. “Everything from the handmade candles to the fresh, local vegetables to the wood from Oxford, PA for the centerpieces, to the organic suppliers and farms for the meats,” she says of an always-revolving, five-course menu. “I run a seed-free oil kitchen, so everything is done in olive oil. We’ll have grilled seasonal vegetables cooked over charcoal and open fire. There will be beef asado as we do in Argentina. There might be empanadas, but I don’t want people to know what to expect. It will be vegetable-forward… I eat clean, and always want that to be reflected in Fuego Cocina Itinerante.
“Even if it does take more time to cook, and goes against people’s needs for fast-everything,” adds Carenga. “Onions, meats, potatoes whatever—the patience needed for open flame cooking is so worthwhile in the end result. Just relax. Have a drink. Enjoy the fire.”
