07/25/2026
Sometimes curiosity leads you exactly where you need to be.
Homesick for Miami during grad school in 2018, I went looking for a piece of home and found it a town over at COPA, a soil-to-table Cuban restaurant in Durham run by Chef Roberto and Elizabeth.
The assignment was “labor.” But what I documented was artistry. Roberto, part scientist, part farmer, part chef, turning fresh ingredients into food that tasted like home. Elizabeth building a bar program with the same devotion, both of them pouring care into their staff.
As an artist, there’s nothing like watching another artist in their craft, the precision, the intention, the love in every plate.
COPA closed in 2024, a quiet casualty of the pandemic. But I still wear the apron they gifted me, and I’m grateful I was there to document this beautiful chapter of Cuban cuisine in North Carolina.
📸 COPA · Durham, NC · 2018