The Onion - Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld
Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld
By Mario I. Ona
8/2/07
When Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld departed his home in Ecuador at 20 years old -deciding to leave after "too much partying" and a "rough situtation" - his businessman father gave him a gold wrist watch and said, "when you're ready to come back, this is your ticket."
The watch came back, but Fraga-Rosenfeld did not. These days, he sports his own Breitling watch, a perk of becoming one of the country's most innovative night life impresarios/restauranteurs. With his wife and business partner, he's owner of some of the area's swankiest restaurant/bars and lounges: Chi-Cha Lounge, Gua-Rapo and its accompanying Nena Lounge, two Ceviche locations, Mate, and Gazuza. He's also credited with having the cigar-and-martini lounge trean after opening Ozio in 1995.
Chi Cha, his flagship joint, opened in 1996 and has become his business model. "Chi-Cha is my baby, my favorite," admits the New Jersey born Fraga-Rosenfeld, who moved to his parents' Ecuador when he was 2 years old. "The concept of Chi-Cha was to make a very cozy, neighborhood place-a Cheers. How does the song go? 'Where everyone knows your name'?" The iconic Chi-Cha's rich, dark red decor, crushed velvet drapes, secondhand kitschy sofas, and warm lighting makes it chic and sophisticated, but also comfortable and homey. The restaurant offers a menu of modern Andean cuisine made up of family recipes. "I would call my grandma and ask her, 'Abuelita, how do you prepare a Ceviche (fish or shrimp in a citrus-tomato based marinade) or yapingachos (mashed potato patties filled with cheese)?' I would then prepare them in my apartment," explains Fraga-Rosenfeld.
A decade after opening Chi-Cha, he opened Mate, continuing the concept of cultrual fusion. While Chi-Cha fuses Middle Eastern Arguileh-hookahs for inhaling fruit-flavored smoke- with Latin American cuisine, at the posher Mate, Fraga Rosenfeld rolls up tamale paste and plantains into Japanese sushi rolls as the featured dish. He also takes credit for bringing the "new Peruvian gastronomic movement" to the area in 2006 with Ceviche Silver Spring. The menu is centered on the ceviche appetizer, but also offers various platos fuertes-or "heavy entrees"-such as aji amarillo sauce with cilantro, parmasean chese, and rice. Ceviche's popularity inspired him to open a second, brand-new location in Glover Park.
And he's only warming up. In November, Fraga-Rosenfeld plans to open a new Clarendon restaurant, Yaku, focusing on another speciality of Peruivian cuisine-the chifa, a seafood rice plate that is part paella and part Chinese fried rice. Fraga-Rosenfeld, a furniture designer and the de facto interior decorator for most of his spots, says he's already picked out the art for the new place and assures, "It's going to be gorgeous." He is also scoping out locations for his Argentinean grill bistro Santo Pecado ("blessed sin"). Then there's his Pais Tropical eco-tourism resort project near Quito, and his Belly Hop record-label partnership, which he hopes will blossom into a Middle Eastern hip-hop cultural movement.
It wasn't always as easy as Fraga-Rosenfeld makes it look. He turned his life around literally overnight-from a life of debauchery in Ecuador to getting up at 6 a.m. to work alongside prisoners at an $3-an-hour construction job. Then he became a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman to pay for college, once selling encyclopedias to a sheriff and his staff while sitting in jail because of a case of mistaken identity (he looked like a guy wanted for child abduction).
When a student discount-card business crashed before his senior year, he was evicted, kicked out of school, and went days without eating. He got back on track by promoting clubs, and later opened Chi-Cha "the only place I could afford."-an old fire station on then-empty U Street. To build his clientele, he would offer to buy passerby drinks, a strategy he would later modify after opening Gua-Rapo only a few weeks after 9/11, going door-to-door in nearby aparment buildings inviting residents to stop by for a drink.
Along the way, he's done whatever it takes to succeed and prove the doubters wrong. His partner at Ozio told him combining cigars and martinis wouldn't work; billionaire Richard Branson didn't agree, as he once stopped by for a smoke. Fraga-Rosenfeld's friends and family called him "crazy" for opening Chi-Cha on U Street, where he had to usher homeless people away from the front door, the restaurant has since helped to build up the neighborhood into one of the region's liveliest.
So when will it be enough? "I'll stop when I die," Fraga-Rosenfeld says. "Originally, the money was the motivation; now it's to build. I really look forward to building projects with my kids. It will be a lot of fun."
As for the gold watch?" I let my grandpa have it after his was stolen," he says. "He wears it to this day.
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