Washington Square West’s latest restaurant brings Chinese flavors to Cuban classics, from pressed sandwiches and fried yuca to flan and croquetas.
Chibanos opened July 1 at 1127 Pine St., formerly Effie’s, with a menu that’s an ode to the food owner Evan Fong Jaroff grew up eating as a third-culture kid in the Philly suburbs. The restaurant’s name is shorthand for what Jaroff’s mother’s family were called growing up: “Chino Cubanos,” or Chinese Cubans.
Jaroff’s mom, Ana, immigrated to the United States from Cuba in the 1960s after the Cuban Revolution. Food helped Jaroff make sense of and learn to appreciate his background as a mixed-race kid, he said.
At their home in Lansdowne, the Jaroffs used “soy sauce like salt,” he said, and ate traditional Southeast Chinese fish dishes alongside rice and beans, yuca, plantains, and minced beef picadillo. On Nochebuena (aka Christmas Eve), his mom would present a plate of lechón, or slow-roasted pork, coated in a secret marinade. Leftovers would be used for sandwiches.
“When you’re mixed race, you’re always compared to one or the other. When I lived on the East Coast, I was just Asian. When I lived on the West Coast, I was just white,” Jaroff, 39, said. “But I’m a whole person.”
Reckoning with his racial identity was the catalyst for Chibanos, which Jaroff started as a pop-up in 2022 after leaving his finance career in London and moving back to Philly. Lacking culinary experience, he enlisted the help of chef Aya Iwatani, a Honeysuckle Provisions alum, to reinterpret his childhood memories into a set of sandwiches that felt authentically Chinese and Cuban, such as a Cubano stuffed with his mom’s famous pork and salted Chinese mustard greens, or jackfruit and tofu seasoned with a garlicky mojo.
Successful takeovers at Solar Myth, Jiggy Coffee, and Forin were enough for Jaroff to go all-in on a brick and mortar. He purchased the building — once home to Effie’s, the beloved Greek BYOB that closed after 27 years — in August 2024.
Jaroff said he was drawn to the 200-year-old rowhouse because its history gave it a lived-in feel.
“I want people to say, ‘Oh, Chibanos? That place looks like it’s been there for 10 years,’” he said.
Nearly two years after the sale, the 1,725-square-foot restaurant is now a casual sandwich shop-meets-cafe, with a revamped courtyard, communal seating, and a fresh paint job. The patio’s turquoise walls bear the names of Jaroff, his brother, and mom, spelled in Chinese characters.
The space flows seamlessly from the counter-service storefront to the courtyard and a rear dining area that looks like a minimalistic tea room — all dark wood and conversational seating. Jaroff said the indoor-outdoor vibe is a nod to Cuba and Southern China, which have the same latitude and thus similar climates.
Chinese food done the Cuban way
The centerpiece of Chibanos’ menu is a lineup of six pressed sandwiches on LeBus’ Cuban loaves, which Iwatani — now Chibanos’ head chef — and Jaroff chose for its just-dense-enough texture after auditioning an array of ciabattas and hoagie rolls. The eggplant empanizado — layered with salt-and-pepper eggplant, pickled serrano peppers, and cubanelle scallion slaw — is a standout. So is the chibano, the restaurant’s namesake riff on a Cubano that uses Jaroff’s mom’s pork recipe.
The key, Iwatani said, is the marinade, which took several tries to get Ana’s stamp of approval. “The first time, she was like, ‘It’s pretty good, but not quite there,’” Iwatani said. “You have to use sherry.”
The rest of Chibanos’ menu was developed after its pop-up run. Hits include croquetas stuffed with slightly sweet Chinese sausage, fried yuca made for dipping in a sofrito-spiced ranch, and a surprisingly light jasmine tea-infused flan. There’s also the sweet-savory-salty Chino breakfast sandwich: Fluffy eggs and char siu-style sausage are stuffed between a mayo-slicked Dodo Bakery bolo bao. The buns allude to the custard-filled rolls from Chinatown Jaroff grew up eating for breakfast.
Chibanos joins the dying tradition of Chino Latino cuisine, a genre that dominated New York City from the 1970s to 1990s as Chinese immigrants from Latin America settled in the U.S. to escape political instability. Chinese (lo mein, spare ribs, etc.) and Latin American (ropa vieja, pernil, etc.) staples sit column A-column B style on menus optimized for pairings at iconic restaurants like La Dinastia and the now-closed Caridad 78.
Cuba historically had a vibrant Chinese culture. One of Latin America’s oldest Chinatowns was established in Havana in the 1920s by Chinese migrants and former indentured servants who opened restaurants that incorporated Caribbean ingredients into traditional Chinese recipes.
Jaroff doesn’t view Chibanos as fusion but rather a tribute to the unique style of cooking he learned from his mom.
“I don’t think of us as a Cuban restaurant. I don’t think of us as a Chinese restaurant,” he said. “Don’t put us in a box … We’re our own thing.”
Chibanos, 1127 Pine St., chibanos.com. Hours: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
