Review: At El Encanto, sit down and enjoy your Caribbean oasis

Excellent cooking and snazzy surroundings at new Virginia St. Puerto Rican spot

Puerto Ricans are by far Buffalo’s largest Latino community, which has made boricua cuisine like pastelillos, pernil, and plantains an essential part of our collective menu.

As long as we don’t mind eating the actual food someplace besides the restaurant, that is. Despite all the fine Puerto Rican cooking in town, there aren’t many places you can enjoy a sit-down, full-service meal with friends. El Encanto is the answer.

Melissa Morales, born in Ponce, on the Caribbean island’s southern coast, grew up in Buffalo after arriving in the United States in 1989. In 2017 she opened El Encanto on Niagara Street, in Riverside, closing in 2021 after the pandemic complicated matters.

Now El Encanto inhabits the first floor of a shiny new apartment building on Virginia Street. La Plaza de Virginia is a three-story senior apartment building developed by Hispanos Unidos de Buffalo, a Latino-focused non-profit founded in 1989.

The afternoon sun makes the dining room’s tropical colors glow. Crimson hibiscus, parrots, and plants line the space. Head to the register to scope out the daily selection of fried dainties akin to those found in beachside snack shacks and elsewhere in the Island of Enchantment.