Astoria Pupuseria With $4.25 Pupusas: Salvatoria Kitchen Bar

Anyone typing pupuseria near me while standing in Astoria ends up at the same address sooner or later: Salvatoria Kitchen & Bar, 31-18 Broadway. It is a sit-down Salvadoran restaurant and bar rather than a counter, which changes how you use it. You can order a single $4.25 pupusa at the bar with a drink, bring a group for the full menu, or take a tray of them to go. The kitchen lists 18 kinds of pupusas, and that range is the reason people cross the neighborhood for it.

Salvatoria's own site says the restaurant has welcomed guests since opening its doors in 2016, and it describes the room as cozy, with a bar built for cocktails and homemade sangria. That mix is unusual among Salvadoran spots in Queens, where many places are small lunch counters. Here the bar runs on the same hours as the dining room, so a pupusa and a cocktail at eight on a Friday is a normal order rather than a special request.

The address is 31-18 Broadway, in the stretch of Astoria where the N and W trains run on the elevated tracks above the street. The Broadway station on those lines is a short walk away, which makes this one of the easier pupuserias in the borough to reach without a car. If you do drive, expect to circle for street parking after dinner time, since the blocks around are residential.

The menu prices most pupusas at $4.25. That covers the classics: queso solo, queso con frijol, revuelta with cheese, refried beans and ground pork, and queso con loroco, the edible flower bud that gives the masa a green, slightly bitter note. It also covers the vegetable choices, ayote with zucchini, espinaca, queso con hongos with mushrooms, and queso con jalapeño. Anything with chicken or shrimp moves up to $5.00.

Then come the house inventions. Pupusaroni at $4.25 is cheese and pepperoni, the pupusa margarita at $4.25 swaps in basil, and the Pupusa Bomb, also $4.25, is a fried mozzarella ball made from the same masa. The Pupusa Loca costs $8.00 and packs shrimp, chicken, cheese, chicharrón and refried beans into one. Purists can ignore all of this and order three revueltas, but it helps to know the kitchen is willing to play.

Every order arrives with the traditional sides, a vinegary cabbage slaw and a thin tomato salsa. Eat the pupusa with your hands, tear it open so the steam escapes, and spoon the slaw on top rather than beside it. The sharpness of the curtido is what cuts through the cheese, so ask for more if your bowl runs out.

A table that wants a full meal has options. The menu lists a $26.00 pupusa combination of rice, refried beans, sweet plantain, sausages and sour cream, which suits anyone who wants pupusas as part of a plate instead of the whole plate. The Sopa de Res, the oxtail soup with chopped beef, is $22.00 and is the dish to pick on a cold evening, while the shrimp soup with cream and a hard-boiled egg is $26.00.

Smaller plates work well for sharing before the pupusas land. Atol de Elote, a sweet corn soup, is $8.00. A corn tamale topped with sour cream is $5.00, a chicken tamale is the same price, and yuca frita with chicharrón is $13.00. For something heavier, the carne asada of flank steak is $32.00 with a choice of two sides, and the pargo rojo, a fried red snapper with rice, beans and salad, is $36.00.

The kitchen does not stay strictly Salvadoran. There are burgers at $16.00 and $17.00, a fried chicken thigh plate, quesadillas, nachos and baleadas, the Honduran folded tortillas filled with beans, eggs, cream and avocado at $15.00. That breadth is useful when one person in a group is not hungry for corn masa, and it explains why the place works as a neighborhood bar as well as a pupuseria.

The posted hours on the restaurant's specials page run Monday through Thursday from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm, Friday from 4:00 pm to 11:30 pm, Saturday from noon to 11:30 pm and Sunday from noon to 9:00 pm. That means weekday lunch is off the table, and the best window for a quiet pupusa is early evening around 4:30 pm, before the bar fills.

Weekends are when the room is busiest. The website takes online reservations and recommends booking ahead, and groups of any size can send an inquiry for a party or a holiday event. If you plan to order several pupusas, start with three or four and add more, because each one is made to order on the griddle and arrives in waves.

For takeout the restaurant runs its own online ordering page as well as delivery apps, and the phone number is (718) 777-2829. Ordering a half dozen pupusas to go is the cheapest way to feed a small office, and at $4.25 each the bill stays lower than most lunch sandwiches in the neighborhood.

The events page lists a Halloween celebration on Saturday, October 31, running from 11:00 am to 11:30 pm, with guests invited to come in costume. A New Year's Eve party on Thursday, December 31 follows, from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm. If you want a pupusa with a crowd and a themed cocktail, the Halloween date is the one to plan around, and it is wise to reserve first.

On an ordinary night the mood is lower key. Warm lighting, a bar with a television for the game and a menu that stretches from tamales to steak make this a place where a first date and a family birthday can share a room.

After eating, the neighborhood has plenty to fill an hour. Broadway itself is lined with bakeries, Greek cafés and late-night dessert counters, and the Museum of the Moving Image and Kaufman Astoria Studios sit a few blocks east. In warm weather, Astoria Park and its riverside path are a longer walk or a short ride toward the water.

Practical notes for the visit: the address is 31-18 Broadway, Astoria, NY 11106, and the phone is (718) 777-2829. Pupusas start at $4.25, chicken and shrimp versions are $5.00, and the Pupusa Loca is $8.00. Take the N or W to the Broadway stop, arrive after 4:00 pm on weekdays and plan on a reservation for weekend evenings.