At Chao Pescao, owner Rene Denis offers the Colombian-style Empanadas de Vallunas that he grew up eating at family gatherings, based on his grandmother’s recipe. Whereas the Argentine empanada pastry almost melts in your mouth, Colombian empanadas are made with a golden cornmeal masa dough and fried until crisp. While in his household the tradition was always a beef and potato filling with aji rojo (red chile), at the restaurant he introduced chicken and pork empanadas as well as a vegan alternative with sweet potatoes, kale and chickpeas. All are gluten free thanks to the cornmeal wrapper. With their crispier outer coating, Colombian-style empanadas are ideal for dipping, and a house-made hot sauce is a traditional accompaniment.

This new, much-lauded Peruvian restaurant in the Bronx has built a following on its empanadas. In Peru, empanadas tend to be smaller in size, often served as an appetizer. They are more similar to the Argentine style than the Colombian; they are baked, not fried, and have a similar pastry wrapper, although often the Peruvian empanada is not quite as flaky or buttery as the Argentine one. Claudy’s offers nine different flavors, some based on traditional Peruvian dishes like “Aji de Gallina,” with shredded chicken, spicy yellow pepper cream and onions, and “Lomo Saltado” with steak strips, tomato and onions. Others are based on ingredients like the spicy chorizo with potato, or “Chicharron” with crispy fried pork belly and salsa criollo. One typical vegetarian option, pictured, is filled with spinach, caramelized onions and mozzarella.

Don Pablo’s was launched in 2021 by spouses and co-owners Pablo Soto and Julie Morrow-Soto as a virtual restaurant specializing in Chilean empanadas (they opened a brick and mortar location in early 2022). A native of Santiago, Soto returned to Chile to learn the craft of empanada making from his aunt before opening Don Pablo’s. Larger than those found in Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela, Chilean empanadas are often distinguished by their squared-off form, as opposed to the crescent moon shape found in most South American countries. They can be baked or fried, generally feature a wheat flour wrapper, are often filled with seafood, and incorporate a splash of white wine in the dough. The menu includes traditional flavors like the “Clásica” filled with top sirloin steak with onions, hard-boiled egg, black olives and spices; others are globally-inspired like the “Greek Tragedy” with artichoke hearts, cremini mushrooms, Kalamata olives and feta cheese; or “The Scramble” stuffed with scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon and a blend of gouda and mozzarella cheeses.

Empanada Alley is a new ghost kitchen concept from two-time James Beard Award winning chef Guillermo Pernot of Cuba Libre, specializing in Cuban-style empanadas. Cuban empanadas are quite similar to Puerto Rican and Dominican empanadas. They use a thin, flaky pastry dough and a variety of fillings both sweet and savory. The concise menu features six flavors including “Pork del Campo” with pulled pork, roasted poblano peppers, charred tomatoes and the West Indian herb culantro, and a sweet empanada filled with guava paste and cream cheese commonly found across Cuba.

Bolivian empanadas, or salteñas, are typically enjoyed in the mid-morning, and traditionally feature a sweet dough filled with a savory mix of chicken or ground beef, potatoes, slices of hard-boiled egg and pitted olives or raisins. What makes salteñas particularly distinctive is their stew-like interior — think of them as the soup dumpling of empanadas Gelatin is added to the filling, keeping it solid when the salteña is being prepared but causing it to liquify while baking. Salteñas can also be identified by their football shape and braid-like seam that runs across the top of the pastry, as well as their light orange crust due to the addition of achiote in the dough. At Saya, owner Maria Helena spent years perfecting her recipe in order to recreate the salteñas she grew up eating in her hometown of La Paz, Bolivia. Available for delivery and pickup, Maria offers two flavors: a Beef salteña made with ground beef, potatoes, English peas, Kalamata olives, hard-boiled egg, and the Andean, a vegan Salteña with quinoa, mushrooms, potatoes, English peas and Andean spices.

Renowned for their “Latin-inspired, Louisiana-influenced” empanadas, Empanola offers 10 different flavors ranging from “Beef Argentina” (pictured) with ground beef, peppers, onions, olives and eggs and “Chicken Peruvian,” with chicken, aji amarillo, pecans, olives and Parmesan cheese, to fillings based on classic “Nola” dishes like crawfish etouffée and gumbo, as well as vegan options like an Impossible empanada and a yellow curry variety with vegetables, nuts, coconut milk and curry spices.

In Portugal, empanadas are called empadas, and are often filled with seafood or chorizo. At the popular, casual tapas restaurant Tasca Tasca, Portuguese born chef Manuel Azevedo (who also owns the more upscale La Salette), uses local Dungeness crab for his empadas fillings — a melding of Portuguese tradition and Northern California ingredients.