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TACOS VALENTINA'S ROGER AVILA ON ESPIRITU COLABORATIVO

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By Kate Frick

Tacos Valentina co-founder Roger Avila recently let us in on the cult pop-up’s collaborative efforts, late-night cravings, and how their modular molino/taqueria is changing the local culinary landscape and raising the standard for tacos in KC.

How did you form Tacos Valentina?

[Corvino Chef] Dina Butterfield begged Kendra [Valentine-Avila] to come to KC. We were in Dallas and had worked for the best chefs in the city. Once we moved, Kendra started at Corvino on a Friday. I went to Tannin where Pablo was chefing. We became friends, and started hanging out and wanted late-night tacos because, in Dallas, they’re everywhere. We started as a ghost kitchen with a strong emphasis on vegan tacos, but with Kendra’s baking knowledge, it was natural to do an heirloom program with tortillas, and now we bring in 200 pounds of corn from Mexico. It started from being pretty much basic tacos.

Your approach wasn’t basic. Your collective chef knowledge goes way beyond simple tacos.

We naturally kept building, and then boom, we have our El Pastor recipe. The same happened with barbacoa. When we do staple items, we stick with them, and the recipes get better and better. We’ll put our barbacoa up against anybody. My family’s from San Antonio, where barbacoa is king. No one really does barbacoa out here, and we wanted to make sure if we were going to introduce a recipe, that it was right. We are building the standard for tacos in KC.

Heirloom grain corn is disappearing all over the world. Can you work with it? Do you have any suppliers locally that you work with?

We work with as many farmers as we can. Some producers make great non-GMO corn varietals. For heirlooms, you really have to go deep into the root of it, and it all leads back to Mexico; that relationship is important. We play around with varietals from different states in Mexico, and they each taste a certain way. We’re willing to try anything. When it comes to corn tortillas, we know what they are meant to be. The company that imports is doing great things with their answers, recommendations, and culinary wisdom from the food and drink masters that push KC flavor further. The following answers have been edited for length and clarity. farmers—something that we couldn’t accomplish by ourselves. Creating that ecosystem is what we love.

Is it satisfying to enter this world of food after spending time in fine dining?

In KC, there’s something to be said for a brick-and-mortar. In Dallas, you could pop up on the corner, and you have a line. Here, a destination is what you need. We like our cult following, but when it comes to our concept, we aren’t going to get as big as we want until we establish a brick-and-mortar.

In the industry, you can be a food truck, have great food, and it’s credible. We’re a modular concept and can fit anywhere. We joke around with the idea of, “Come World Cup, we’ll go to LA, and buy five taco carts and bring them back. We’ll be everywhere.” [laughs] The dream is a flagship. Until then, we’ll go anywhere.

Salsa opinions run hot. Tell us more about yours.

Salsa Chilango is like the taco sauce. Mexico City is where the sauce is from. Whenever you go out and see a vendor, you ask them, “What’s your favorite salsa?” Everybody will have the salsa Chilango. [Chilango means “belongs to Mexico City.”] Vendors will say, “This one, put it on everything.” Ours started as a super spicy salsa, but it’s a balanced mix of umami, heat, and acid.

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