BALTIMORE — This week in the middle of the CIAA, its Black Owned Restaurant Tour or BORT week.

It’s a week that highlights some local black-owned restaurants in Baltimore.

Papi Cuisine is one of the restaurants highlighted during BORT, and executive chef and owner Alex Perez said the food gets people in the door, but it’s the whole experience he wants them to experience. remember.

“It’s casual, but it’s an elevated casual dining experience. So you might be able to enjoy some things that you might typically enjoy at a fine dining establishment, but you don’t have to wear the suit and a tie,” Perez said.

BORT started on Monday and ends the following Sunday, with a total of eight companies on the list. Each restaurant has a day to present its specialties to Baltimore visitors.

“So it’s fusion, I call it Afro-Latin fusion, so I take flavors that I learn to cook in the Dominican Republic and fuse them with African, French, Italian and South American dishes,” Perez said.

The brand started small before branching out.

“It started as a full delivery service for residential and commercial customers in 2014,” Perez said.

Berry Clark, co-owner of the restaurant, said it took some time to find the right place to set up shop.

“We were in Fells Point, but we kind of went over the space, so we came here and we were only doing takeout for a little while because we wanted to perfect our process,” Clark said.

They opened as an on-site restaurant last May, and with the unique flavor menu, they have now served over 175,000 people and are working every day to serve more.

“I will say check out the honey lamb chops and jerk,” Perez said. We’re excited and it’s also CIAA week with the traffic we usually get, it’s going to be a very busy week for us but we’ll definitely be making sure customers are worth coming in and patronizing the establishment. I want them to leave with a memorable experience and I want them to tell a friend or family member about it, it’s as simple as that.”