Haitian Kitchens of Pine Hills: Griot, Pâté Kodé and the Silver Star Run

If you want to understand Pine Hills, eat Haitian in it. Pine Hills is home to one of the largest Haitian communities in Central Florida, and its kitchens — on Pine Hills Road, Silver Star Road and West Colonial Drive — cook the full canon: griot crisped at the edges, pâté kodé hot from the fryer, lalo stewed down with crab and pork, akra fritters, fried goat, baked macaroni, rice and beans in both their white and black-mushroom glory. None of it is fusion, none of it is toned down. This is the food of home, cooked for the neighborhood that our Pine Hills hub calls one of Orlando’s most diverse — and it is some of the best eating in the city.

Pine Hills Road: the corridor

Island Jam Caribbean, at 2615 N. Pine Hills Road, is the corridor’s wide net — a Caribbean and Haitian kitchen whose menu runs from Creole red snapper and Port-au-Prince-style oxtails to lalo with rice, okra sauce and Haitian spaghetti, that beloved breakfast-and-anytime dish of pasta, peppers and hot dog or herring that every Haitian household makes its own way. R&G Cuisine, at 3413 N. Pine Hills Road, keeps the focus tight: griot, fried goat, roasted fried turkey and baked macaroni — the celebration dishes, done as everyday takeout. Creole Bakery Restaurant, in the same stretch of Pine Hills Road, pairs the bakery case — Haitian patties — with plates of fried goat (tasso), turkey stew and rice and beans. And Rita’s Cuisine, down at 731 N. Pine Hills Road near Colonial, opens early and runs all day, the kind of kitchen a neighborhood builds its routines around.

Silver Star Road: patties and family takeout

Silver Star, Evans High School’s street, eats Haitian too. Benita’s Kitchen, at 5419 Silver Star Road, lists its patties the Haitian way — pâté poul (chicken), pâté bèf (beef) — alongside fried tilapia, Haitian baked macaroni and passion fruit juice (ji grenadya). It is a short walk from the school gates and feeds students, families and everyone in between. Further west, Belinda Take Out, at 6900 Silver Star Road, is built for the family run: fried red snapper, ribs, wings and house juices, packed to travel. Love Bird’s Jerk Spot nearby covers the Jamaican side of the street — a reminder that on Silver Star, the Caribbean is not one island but all of them.

West Colonial: the pâté kodé specialist

Little Haiti Paté Kodé, at 5555 W. Colonial Drive, puts the dish in its name and its identity: “home of the pâté kodé.” The pâté kodé is Haiti’s hand pie — seasoned ground meat (or chicken, or fish) folded into dough and fried until it blisters — and a specialist shop is exactly how it deserves to be sold: hot, cheap and in multiples. The menu around it covers griot, akra, oxtail and fried fish, so a first visit can be a full Haitian sampler with the patty as the headline. It sits a few blocks west of Golden Krust and Caribbean Supercenter, which makes West Colonial the single best street in Orlando for a Caribbean crawl; our Where to Eat in Pine Hills roundup maps the whole run.

How to order if it is your first time

Start with griot — cubes of pork marinated in citrus and Scotch bonnet, boiled, then fried until the edges crisp — served with pikliz, the fiery pickled cabbage slaw that is not optional, whatever the menu implies. Add a pâté kodé of each filling. If lalo is on, order it; the jute-leaf stew is a taste of Haiti’s north that few Orlando kitchens attempt. Finish with the baked macaroni, which Haitian cooks build richer and more structured than the American version. Then mark these kitchens on the Orlando Top Spots Map and come back with friends — Haitian food is generous food, and Pine Hills is where Orlando keeps it.

Filed under Caribbean Food · Haitian Food · Pine Hills · Pine Hills Road · Silver Star Road

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