Get an Early Taste of Pagu This Weekend

The Pagu Wafflato. / Photo by Matt Li provided

Pagu, Tracy Chang’s first solo venture, has been in the works for several years—in the sense that the chef has been meeting other culinary, academic, and artistic minds and building her network since her Boston College days. A former O Ya cook and cofounder of Guchi’s Midnight Ramen, Chang is also a fellow in the Harvard Science & Cooking program, and spent a year as Martin Berasategui’s right hand at his eponymous restaurant outside San Sebastian, Spain.

Her experiences come together at an all-day café and restaurant with a big focus on collaboration, located on the edge of the MIT campus in Central Square. This weekend, get an early taste of Pagu, while meeting some of the people who will help Chang bring it to life.

Chef Tracy Chang of PAGU. / Photo provided

A pop-up party on the Pagu patio will have Gracenote Coffee Roasters coffee, Island Creek Oysters with Pagu mignonette, and brunch bites from Chang’s forthcoming menu, including her housemade granola, potato-based waffles she calls wafflatoes, and a Spanish omelette. Artist and potter Jordan Colón, who is making some of Pagu’s tableware, is bringing his kick wheel for on-site demonstrations, and will also be selling ceramics during the party.

“Being in Cambridge, being in Boston, whether it’s an MIT professor working on quantum mechanics, or an entrepreneur working on open source tech, or a budding restaurateur, we’re all impassioned by what we do and enlivened by it,” Chang says. “I’m motivated by complete other industries, and that’s where my inspiration comes from.”

But, her desire is to feed you good food. Pagu is under construction inside the Takeda building, on track to open later this fall.

Saturday, October 15, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Pagu, 310 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, gopagu.com.