Chef Profile Video: Jamilka Borges Paints a Portrait of Perseverance in Pittsburgh
Food is many things to many people. Food is political. Food is art. And for Chef Jamilka Borges, food is also the way she still speaks to her father.
Her road to becoming Pittsburgh's resident Wild Child wasn’t an easy one. Her father, who raised her making art at their kitchen table, passed away during her senior year of high school. Cooking became her way to process the shock and grief and after a year of trying to study art history in college, she knew that she needed a big change.
She followed her then boyfriend to Pittsburgh and started working her way up through kitchens, starting with Legume. She showed up to the interview with an artist’s portfolio full of images of her plates from culinary school in hand, never straying far from her roots. It was the right place at the right time for her because the kitchen conversation would usually center around art, politics and community -- not just food.
As her career picked up, Jamilka always found time to give back. She was mentoring young female chefs at every turn while running multiple kitchens and planning fundraising dinners for nonprofits like 412 Food Rescue and her mother’s Hurricane Maria relief effort back home in Puerto Rico, El Buen Samaritano.
In March of 2020, Jamilka returned to Puerto Rico for a visit. The day after she arrived, a 5-week COVID-19 lockdown began. Spending this time quarantining with her mother allowed them to reflect on the whirlwind of changes they had both experienced since her father’s death and by the time she got back to Pittsburgh in April, the daring spirit that led her to move there in the first place was back in full force. She signed the lease for what would eventually become Wild Child within a month.
Opening a restaurant is daunting. But, opening a restaurant during a pandemic that is shuttering eateries around the world is next-level daunting. If anyone can pull it off, it's a chef, screenprinter, painter, philanthropist, entrepreneur, runner, mentor and daughter named Jamilka.
Jamilka Borges in Raise a Glass produced by Neon Bites for The James Beard Foundation and Rabbit Hole Distillery.
