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By Hannah Saunders

Cafe Presse, an authentic French drinking and dining joint, closed its doors in February. This May, it will be replaced by an authentic Galician-style drinking and dining joint, MariPili.

“It was my grandmother who taught me how to cook, and MariPili is kind of based on my grandmother,” said Grayson Pilar Corrales, owner and founder of MariPili. “She taught me how to cook from a very young age. She is Galician and she’s from Spain—as well as my grandfather. So, she was always cooking Spanish food and teaching me Spanish recipes.”

MariPili was a nickname for Corrales’ aunt, Maria Pilar, who passed away before Corrales was born.

“It was always significant to my grandmother that I was named after her, and so to honor her and to honor my grandmother — because that’s who the concept is based on — I’ve named the restaurant MariPili,” Corrales said.

Early in the pandemic, Corrales was working as a pastry chef for Edouardo Jordan before sexual harassment allegations surfaced. She walked away from the position. She and her husband decided that she should take the opportunity to study in the O Grove region of Spain.

“I went and did an internship at a two Michelin star restaurant called Culler de Pau in Galicia, where I learned more about Galician cuisine and about my grandmother’s heritage really,” said Corrales.

While in Spain, Corrales began the process of purchasing Cafe Presse as its longtime owners were looking to begin retirement after 15 years of service at the 12th Ave restaurant.

“I had toured it last March, and then the price was still out of my budget, and then they had decreased the price on the business, and I was notified of it while I was still in Spain, and it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Corrales said.

Corrales closed on the space right when she got back to the U.S. On March 1st, she received keys to the former Café Presse.

“What’s really great about what Café Presse created for us is that they already—it’s a restaurant space where everything’s already laid out in a way that’s super advantageous for our concept as well,” Corrales said.

Corrales said the long bar from Café Presse will be turned into a tapas bar and the cafe’s kitchen is ready for its new life. The restaurant’s back dining room area will also breath new life.

“It’s nice to be able to section off your guests, or to place large parties in the back, or even do private dining in the back,” said Corrales. “It’s going to be advantageous for us to create a higher energy bar, but then also have a potential private dining room or a quieter dining room for guests that don’t want the bar energy, but still want to dine with us.”

The layout of MariPili will be similar to Presse, although everything has been repainted with white and blue as the primary colors. New flooring and ceiling were put in, and MariPili will feature an abundance of natural wood. Corrales’ focus is to make MariPili feel as much like Galicia—with a modern twist—as possible.

MariPili’s grand opening is set to take place in May

“As of right now, we’re still on schedule for our early to mid-May opening,” said Corrales. “I’m really lucky to have all of my managers in place already. I have some really super talented and dedicated people that are going to be joining my team.”

Corrales’ goals are to keep things as local as possible, while staying true to the concept of MariPili. Menu items will be in Corrales’ style, or in a style she’s modeled around her grandmother’s way of cooking, including a play on her grandmother’s Spanish meatballs.

“We’ll have a variety of croquettes, but we’ll do a Dungeness crab croquette to make it play into our locale here because we don’t want to just import all of our ingredients, we want to be supporting PNW farmers and producers,” Corrales said.

MariPili is being prepared for a May debut at 1117 12th Ave. You can keep track of progress at @maripili_tapas_bar.

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Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.