From Pop-Up to Powerhouse: Amy’s Pastelillos Brings Puerto Rican Flavor to Fishtown

Clockwise from the top: Vegano bowl, yuca en escabeche, arroz con gandules, and polito bowl at Amy’s Pastelillos. / Photograph by Mike Prince

It’s early on a Saturday at Amy’s Pastelillos, and already there’s a line.

Well, not a line. A crowd, really. A bunch of Philadelphians milling around the front door and small porch, all looking up and wondering when it’s going to rain.

The place is small, pink, and cozy. It used to be a fried chicken place, but now, inside, there are leafy walls, a counter, racks of the house’s blazing-hot (and sweet, and delicious) La Parchita hot sauce. Outside, a whole accent wall in purest Barbie pink. You can’t miss the place. And in Fishtown, not many do.

Not long ago, Amaryllis­ Rivera Nassar was doing this all as a pop-up operation, slinging frituras anywhere she could find some kitchen space, bringing Puerto Rican street food to the masses at Garage, Herman’s, Middle Child, and elsewhere. Now, though, she has an address and a big yellow sign with her name on it. And the pastelillos that she staked her name and reputation on are flying out the door.

Service at Amy’s is across the counter — not a lot different than how she did things as a pop-up — but the menu has blossomed. There are a half-dozen pastelillos on the board every day: Puerto Rican turnovers, flaky and flat-ish, filled with guava-sweet barbecued pork, shredded chicken from the stewpot, ground beef picadillo with tiny cubes of potato like buried treasure.

I try to figure out what my favorite thing about the place is, but I can’t. The stewed pink beans are a comfort. The sweet plantains are gooey with caramelized sugars, soft just the way I like them, and so sweet and delicious I could eat two orders back-to-back and still want a third. The pollito bowl uses the stewed chicken from the pastelillos, but cut into chunks, served over soft white rice with pickled onion and avocado and mashed tostones I love the way other people love garlic or bourbon or Beyoncé. It tastes like chicken soup made solid. Dressed with the house hot sauce it sings like a choir on Sunday.

You can’t not bounce back and forth from one foot to the other while you’re waiting on your order, can’t not smile when your order finally comes up. The joy of Amy’s is infectious. You can taste every ounce of love Nassar has for this food. All she wants to do is share it. And even when the rain finally comes (just a sprinkle, but still), no one leaves. We all just move under the eaves and overhangs and stand there, watching the door, waiting for our names to be called.

3 Stars — Come from anywhere in Philly

Rating Key
0 stars: stay away
★: come if you have no other options
★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood
★★★: come from anywhere in Philly
★★★★: come from anywhere in America

Published as “From Pop-Up to Powerhouse” in the September 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.