A new restaurant in Roseburg Square offers meals with Spanish, Filipino, Italian, Latin American, and American influences.
Cora at Roseburg Square opened Friday morning where The Divine Swine used to be.
“I’ve seen this building as three or four different restaurants, and this is the cutest version,” said Trish Christensen, president and CEO of the Modesto Chamber of Commerce.
The Divine Swine’s recipes are still here. George Bertaina, his partner Alicia Zabala, and Zabala’s aunt and uncle, Gracey and Tad Wood, bought the recipes and will serve food from that menu too.
Cora’s menu features family fusion items
Cora is offering a “soft opening” menu now, but will later have a bigger menu that changes with the seasons, Zabala said.
The menu includes pork lumpia (Filipino spring roll), risotto cakes, elote-style hush puppies, several salads, three sandwiches, a Greek galette, two types of empanadas, and options for kids. Breakfast will start in a few months.
Desserts include an ube maritozzi (Italian cream bun with Filipino purple yam), a torta de Santiago (Spanish almond cake), and a chocolate trifle.
The restaurant has a full bar with beer, wine, and signature cocktails. The most popular drink is the Purple Pain (Filipino rum, ube syrup, coconut, pineapple, and lime), according to Cora’s Facebook page.
Family and cultural backgrounds inspire the decor
Cora at Roseburg Square is named after Bertaina’s grandmother, Paulina Corazon Delavaca-Ramirez, who was nicknamed Cora.
“Cora, my grandmother, had a special way of bringing our big family together with all our different personalities,” Bertaina said. “That’s what we hope to bring to this community.”
When you walk into the restaurant, you’ll see a bright mural painted by FASM, aka Aaron Vickery.
FASM is “really good” at painting animals, Zabala said, so she looked up animals from the Philippines and found the tamaraw, a small, endangered buffalo from Mindoro.
The tamaraw stands for prosperity, strength, and integrity, Bertaina said, making it perfect for the restaurant. One buffalo in the mural is painted with sunglasses “to make it fun.”
Bertaina and Zabala also plan to hang a portrait of Cora in the restaurant.
Cora at Roseburg Square is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.