Ki Pollo Restaurant and How it created a cultural Melting Pot

Owners of Ki Pollo Dominic Branduzzi, Claudia Moyano, Roger Li | photograph by Alex Young

When Pittsburgh restaurant partners Dominic Branduzzi and Roger Li sought to expand their business, they ate “some really good fried chicken, Korean style fried chicken in Philly especially,” Branduzzi said. That got them thinking.

Branduzzi, Li, and Claudia Moyano represent ethnic confluence in food, which they mix and serve together at their four-month-old eatery called Ki Pollo in Lawrenceville.

The trio diversifies the food climate in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood by bringing “new things to the table,” Branduzzi said.

They focused on "what else could Lawrenceville use," and "what would people gravitate towards," Branduzzi explained.

Before Ki Pollo, however, these three chefs had experience in Pittsburgh’s restaurant scene. Branduzzi brought his native Italian cuisine with his 13-year-old Piccolo Forno establishment that specializes in handmade pasta and wood-fired pizza. Li’s Japanese pub called Umami, and Ki Ramen, an establishment that has their own in-house Japanese noodle, offers tasty options that Moyano helps him cook. Li remembers his first restaurant 14 years ago next to PNC on General Robinson Street. It was called New Moon and sat on the North Side next to PNC Park.

Now, the chefs’ do well at putting their cultural backgrounds into their food. 35-year-old Branduzzi is originally from Lucca, Italy and he moved to the U.S. when he was four. Li is a 35-year-old Korean-American via Philadelphia, and recalls working for his family’s restaurant. “The only job I had was in the kitchen,” he said. Additionally, 40-year-old Moyano hails from Mendoza, Argentina and has 10-years of restaurant experience cooking with Li at Umami and Ki Ramen.

Prior to cooking in Pittsburgh restaurants, chef Moyano cooked empanadas with her mom in their native Mendoza home. The staple Latin dish has “different varieties of empanadas” from country to country, Moyano said.

Mouths are drawn to the niche street food dishes Ki Pollo serves. Korean style fried chicken (4 pieces for $12) and empanadas ($3.25 for beef or chicken) create "different options" for customers to try, Moyano said. The cuisines mesh well in Lawrenceville because it’s "a food destination," Branduzzi said, and comfort food "fried chicken brings everyone together."

Sophia Dyke (left) & Alex Young (right) enjoy Ki Pollo's Korean Style Fried Chicken inside the Ki Pollo restaurant | photos by Alex Young & Sophia Dyke respectively

The Korean style fried chicken that the chefs discovered on their travel matches Moyano’s empanadas. She likes her empanadas with beef, although other choices like chicken and shiitake mushroom are on her menu at Ki Pollo.

Love Sophia Dyke and I ate Ki Pollo on a Friday night just before close. Rhythmic Latin music like the song “Amor Silvestre” played through the stereo system. The four-piece fried chicken with sweet but savory bao buns came quickly accompanied by the Pollo empanada with a side of rice and beans. Dip the chicken in the Tamarind BBQ sauce. Fresh pieces of chicken breast, drumstick, thigh and a whole wing got washed down with our own Blue Moon booze; the perks of BYOB at no additional cost. Our meal for two carried a feasible $20 price tag.

When you go, try the two, four or six-piece fried chicken meals ranging from $7 to $18. A fried chicken sandwich for $10 and a Combo with a drumstick, chicken breast, whole wing and a choice of two empanadas are available for $16. The mushroom and pumpkin empanadas cost $3 sold separately and the sides of daily soup, Flan con Carmelo, pickles, Kim Chi and Miso Collard Greens range between $1 for Alfajores and $5 for daily soup.

Ki Pollo mural | photograph by Alex Young

Branduzzi notes that the cultural "duality here" welcomes anybody. “Families” come in to eat Moyano said. Additionally, young people in the ‘Burgh’s creative scene frequent Ki Pollo too. Chanice Lazarre, the head of marketing and management for rapper NVSV and the Library Collaborative record label, spoke to her colleague musician Smitty (SMTATOE) at the Library studio in the South Hills. “You should try Ki Pollo,” she said. He looked curious as Lazarre put Smitty onto something new. “Ki Pollo, the fried chicken and empanada spot. It’s bomb.”

While the Lawrenceville restaurant already attracts different types of people from varied city regions for meals, “more diversification would be the thing I hope to see in the next five to ten years in Pittsburgh,” Branduzzi said. Selections like “good Filipino food, good Cuban food or good Mexican food” will boost the environment and make the food climate even more of a cultural mainstay.

“As an American, it’s all about the melting pot,” Branduzzi said.

The melting pot creates various tastes like those at Ki Pollo, which Li wants people “to feel that they will crave,” he said.

Alex Young graduated from Point Park University in the Spring of 2018. Young will continue his journalistic career at InTheRoughStyle.com, an online culture magazine dedicated to sharing diamond stories about local gems.