Meet Merengue Chef Hector Piña

By Margarita Martinez

June 27, 2012
When I met Chef Piña, I learned it is the Dominican dishes from his restaurant Merengue that the Red Sox enjoy during home games at Fenway.

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Hector Piña moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1986. Eight years later, in August 1994, he opened his restaurant, Merengue – quite by accident. He had been helping a friend sell a restaurant she owned in Roxbury and when they couldn’t find a buyer, she suggested he purchase it. Piña started out with five tables and a menu of authentic Dominican cuisine. Fast-forward seventeen years and he has thirty tables, an events space and caters home games at Fenway Park.

Chef Hector Piña with Melkys Cabrera, Luis Vizcaino and Robinson Cano. (Patricia Alvarado/WGBH)

As a child growing up in the Dominican Republic, Piña loved to compare the various flavors he tasted and imagine his own delicious dishes. These childhood imaginings and memories inspired Piña’s recipes at Merengue. When he first began planning Merengue, Piña knew he wanted it to have all the traditional flavors of his grandmother’s kitchen, but with all natural ingredients. Once patrons taste a dish in a restaurant like this, Piña believes, they’ll go straight back in time and feel like they’re eating from their mother’s own table.

Merengue has now become the jewel of Dominican cuisine in Boston, serving a clientele of movie stars and famous baseball players. And as a Roxbury institution, Merengue hosts many politicians who want to reach out to this key community. Piña considers this civic engagement as part of the responsibility of running a community restaurant. He has served on the advisory board of events like Jolgorio Navideno, a Latin American gala in Boston that raises funds for Latino-based educational programs, and VOTO Latino, a civic organization that promotes community participation in local politics.

Piña and his wife Nivia’s next project is to open a new Puerto Rican restaurant, Vejigante, in the South End.

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Watch Neighborhood Kitchens online to find out more about Merengue and Roxbury.

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