While much of Central and Latin American cuisine uses a lot of similar ingredients and shares food staples such as rice, beans, plantain bananas and pork, each country puts its own spin on things.

“The ingredients are very similar,” said Alfonso Gonzalez. “The way you prepare them is what’s different.”

As a co-owner of the newly opened La Isla Cuisine at 16505 Redmond Way in downtown Redmond, he spends a fair amount of time explaining to people the difference between Mexican food and the Puerto Rican food that is served in his restaurant.

“Our spices are flavored spices,” he explained. “They’re not spicy spices.”

Gonzalez said if heat is added to Puerto Rican dishes, it’s after the fact, not part of the main preparation. He added that garlic is a big part of Puerto Rican cuisine as well, saying, “there’s garlic in almost everything (they) make.”

Gonzalez, who grew up in Rio Piedras just south of the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan, said the food of his native country is a mix of African and Spanish cooking. There are also influences from the indigenous Taino people of Puerto Rico.

Gonzalez designs the menu at La Isla and said they try to keep their dishes as traditional as possible. However, he said they do take into consideration that the Pacific Northwest is about as far from Puerto Rico as you can get on mainland United States and not all of the typical and traditional ingredients are readily available. Because of this, La Isla’s menu also has a few Northwest nods — including salmon, which is not a fish native to the Caribbean Sea.

La Isla opened April 14 and the Redmond location is the second restaurant for Gonzalez and his business partner and fellow co-owner Jason Mikos. The first La Isla is located in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

The two men decided to expand and open a location in Redmond because there is a decent-sized Puerto Rican population on the Eastside, Gonzalez said. He said people from Microsoft travel down to Puerto Rico once a year to recruit employees.

Gonzalez said they started their business by selling Puerto Rican food at the Fremont Sunday Market in Seattle. The original plan was to do this for three years or so and then open a physical restaurant, but Gonzalez said they were successful enough that first year they were able to open La Isla in Ballard ahead of schedule. After about a year, Gonzalez and Mikos bought out a third business partner and became the sole co-owners.

“Jason’s the numbers guy, I’m the kitchen guy,” Gonzalez said about their business relationship.

Gonzalez’s restaurant career began when he moved to Amherst, Mass. to attend the University of Massachusetts. He started out washing dishes at the campus commons, eventually working at other restaurants. He moved on to other roles in the kitchen including line cook, prep cook and sous chef. A lot of the items on the La Isla menu are based on old recipes from Gonzalez’s family.

In addition to Puerto Rican cuisine, the restaurant has a Rum Club, a monthly event where diners can learn about what Gonzalez describes as the “forgotten spirit.” He said rum is also the drink of choice for many people living in the Puerto Rican countryside.

He explained that people like to mix rum, not taste it. La Isla’s Rum Club teaches people about different kinds of rum  and like wine, what types of food pairs well with them.

Rum Club is the last Wednesday of the month in Redmond and the last Tuesday of the month in Ballard and features a different brand each meeting.

“I’ve learned so much,” Gonzalez said about Rum Club.