Craving authentic Puerto Rican food? A new restaurant in St. Petersburg could have your fix.

Owned by Jean Totti, Wepa Cocina de Puerto Rico uses handwritten family recipes going back three generations.

“Working with these recipes for months, we’ve selected a range of dishes that represent our culinary history,” Totti says. “The menu items are made from fresh ingredients following traditional methods.”

The menu at Wepa (pronounced weh-pah) includes street foods known as picadera and traditional dishes like carne frita, paella and flan.

Totti’s passion for food was established while cooking with his mother, aunt and grandmother, and visiting the public market with his father. “This legacy is the inspiration for our menu,” Totti says. “Today, we are drawn to ingredients from local markets, such as in the centuries old tradition of visiting Santurce’s Plaza del Mercado.”

Wepa is open for lunch and dinner daily. ♦

wepastpete.com