La Bodega
Francie and David spent the weeks before opening arguing about whether Glasgow would eat a Venezuelan empanada, then put them on the menu anyway.
Why go
The shop opened on Bellgrove Street in August 2023 as one of the first places in the city selling Venezuelan food, and the food arrived almost by accident. We decided to go for it and just introduce empanadas because no one else was doing a Venezuelan-style empanada. Shortly after, we got the locals hooked on it,
Francie told GlasgowWorld (GlasgowWorld). The dough is the thing worth understanding: Venezuelan empanadas are built on Harina Pan, a pre-cooked maize flour, which gives a slightly sweet dough that fries golden and crisp rather than flaky, and the shop makes them by hand every day (La Bodega). The coffee runs on the same logic. The beans come from Venezuela through Andes Coffee Project, a young roaster in England that imports and roasts them.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a queso empanada at GBP 3 to read the dough, made with llanero, the firm Venezuelan cow's-milk cheese. Then the pelua arepa at GBP 6.70, slow-cooked shredded beef with cheese, or the mechada empanada at GBP 4.90, where the beef is cooked down with a sofrito of onions, peppers and garlic. Fraser, writing as a Glasgow local for Spotted by Locals, picks a different one:
The tajada arepa is my favourite dish on the menu, combining Venezuelan cheese and fresh plantain in a cornmeal flatbread
2. - Avoid: arriving expecting tapas. The name is Spanish and the kitchen is Venezuelan, and the two share almost nothing on the plate.
What locals & experts say
- GlasgowWorld (Callum McCormack, July 2025), quoting Francie on the risk:
I was a bit afraid of how people would react to Venezuelan food because obviously it's not something you hear about a lot on the daily.
1 - Francie, on sourcing:
We get the beans from Venezuela. We get them from Andes Coffee Project. They're a fairly new roaster.
1 - Spotted by Locals (Fraser, February 2025):
La Bodega is a cozy little eatery in Glasgow's Dennistoun area,
with free WiFi andvery reasonable pricing,
and pollo empanadasin a perfect snack size.
2 - Local rec: Jeff's save. He left no note on it.
Good to know
- Timing: a daytime counter. It opens early for the morning coffee trade and closes in the afternoon, so treat it as breakfast and lunch. Check the venue's own channels for exact hours.
- Booking: walk-in. There is table seating, and the room is small.
- Getting there: Bellgrove Street, on the Dennistoun side of the Gallowgate. Bellgrove station is a short walk.
- Around it: Francie names Grants bakery next door, Daily's, Zennor, Redmond's and Mesa on the same run of street, which makes this a good first stop rather than the whole trip.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates the address a Pass, inspected 18 June 2024.4
Verdict
could-visit — A husband-and-wife counter on Bellgrove Street doing Venezuelan empanadas and arepas on Harina Pan dough, hand made daily, with single-origin Venezuelan beans from Andes Coffee Project. Francie put empanadas on the menu weeks before opening because nobody else in Glasgow was doing a Venezuelan one, and that gamble is the whole story. A GBP 3 cheese empanada and a GBP 6.70 shredded-beef arepa is serious value. It is a small daytime counter rather than a destination, so it earns a stop when you are in the East End.