Adelaide Arcade tea room Cielo is selling churrasco sandwiches on Saturdays only, paying further homage to owner Chaveli Goya's Chilean childhood.

The opening of Cielo in Adelaide Arcade last year led to frantic bakery mornings with little air circulation, during which founder Chaveli Goya would cook in a tiny kitchen and squeeze around her colleagues to get the sunrise jobs done.

Barely a year into business, Chaveli has decided it’s time to expand upwards into a bigger, open production kitchen.

Chaveli initially planned for the expansion to be purely a production space, but she felt that would be a missed opportunity.

Instead, she’s inviting the public to turn up to the Cielo kitchen on Saturdays and grab a broader range of Chilean snacks than what Cielo currently has available.

“I’ve always wanted to do something that’s a bit more Chilean and have a bit more of an influence,” Chaveli says.

“The main reason why is because… people don’t know Chilean food. So I thought, why not use this space so people can come up, grab something to eat, watch us actually cooking [and] see the space.”

Family love in the new space

This once-a-week opening is dubbed Sanguchería Saturdays and the star dish is churrasco, a Chilean-style sandwich.

Sandwiches are very of the moment, which Chaveli acknowledges. But the chef has particularly fond memories of walking into corner shops in Chile to purchase a churrasco that she hopes to share with Adelaide.

“I think everyone makes a really good sandwich and you can make sandwiches at home,” Chaveli says.

“But there’s something about the Chilean churrasco that I’m obsessed with and it’s that it’s so simple.”

The churrasco is “basically like a steak sandwich”, says Chaveli, with avocado, tomato, pebre (fresh Chilean salsa), charred Section 28 cheese, garlic oil and house-made mayo and chilli.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s just mind-blowing… It’s just so simple,” she says.

The bread is made from scratch by Chaveli’s mum, Liliana, and brings back memories of eating at home among her extended family, the aroma of freshly baked bread tingling in the distance.

“There’s no one in Adelaide doing that bread. My mum makes that bread like farm-style,” Chaveli says.

Some serious charring

Chaveli says all of her food ventures are a way of giving back to her parents and honouring her Chilean roots.

“[Cielo is] showing the proper stuff that we grew up with, the stuff that my parents would make,” Chaveli says.

“It’s like proper having it at home, and that’s the main thing I’ve always said since I was little: I want to have something, I want my parents to have something, and this is kind of like me giving back to them.”

After spending her younger years travelling to Chile, Chaveli often reminisces on the days she would run to the garden to get something for her grandma. She wants this upstairs venture to honour those long-gone days.

“[Cielo] is very, very old school and I wanted that,” Chaveli says.

“I want it to be like how it used to be. We don’t see that anymore… I wanted it to be like going to a corner shop in Chile.”

Goya’s back in the day

Chaveli’s South American upbringing was filled with loud conversations around the dinner table with some serious meat-eaters, some of whom are displayed in collages of family photos around the upstairs space.

“I mean, [my heritage] means probably everything,” she says.

“Everything we do here is with so much love… and thought and passion, and I think that’s actually where my success lies.”

As Sanguchería Saturdays suggests, the new sandwich offering will only be available once a week.

But weekday office workers need not fear, as Chaveli hopes to expand the new venture further, once the Cielo family settles into its new spot.

Cielo’s production space is located at Level 1, Shop 107g Adelaide Arcade and will be open from 11am ’til 2pm, starting this Saturday, 3 June.

Follow Cielo on Instagram for more information.

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