Jose Avila
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By Natalia Otero
In February 2023, Chef José Ávila uploaded a photo of tacos filled with grasshoppers, an insect that has been eaten since ancient times in Mexico. The image, posted to the Instagram account of La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal, his restaurant in Denver, received negative comments. Ávila didn’t lash out at the critics -- instead, the Diabla Pozole team organized a bug festival, in which people were able to try different dishes, from snacks to tacos, with insects. The event changed minds.
“When we proposed grasshopper tacos, people reacted negatively. I understood that they were people who were not informed, so I made a bug festival,” he says. “We had 6 plates, like a sampler, and it was so successful that it became national news.”
Ávila says grasshoppers have the same protein value as beef, but require less water and pollute less than cattle.
“Eating bugs has been, continues to be, and will continue to be a tradition,” he comments. “Mexicans have consumed insects since ancient times. There are 10,000 [insect-based] foodstuffs in the world, and around 600 are consumed in Mexico. Most of them are concentrated in the center of the country, in places like Oaxaca, and in some parts of the north and center.”
When he was a child, he accompanied his grandmother to the central market in Mexico City, where all the food from the different regions of Mexico arrives. Insects such as grasshoppers, maguey worms, red worms, chinicuiles, rain ants, larvae, jumiles that are eaten alive, and scorpions can be found there.
Now, in his own restaurant, Avila has given the people of Denver a slice of this tradition. He serves them as a snack or in spicy sauces, with tomato, onion, and garlic.
Success and Challenge
The Mexico-born chef, nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award, has opened four restaurants that honor ancestral Mexican food in Denver. They have all been a success, and each one has brought a challenge.
Avila came to Denver when he was 22 and worked at Chez Jose, a popular burrito spot. In 2011, when he was 30 years old, he opened what he claimed would be the first authentic Mexican taco and tequila restaurant in the United States. Machete, Tequila y Tacos grew to three locations; they are still open today, though Avila no longer owns them.
In 2019, inspired by his daughter, he opened a new project, El Borrego Negro, a Yucatan food truck. To supply the truck he found a farm where he could raise animals and make underground ovens for roasting. He learned the technique from his grandmother and used her protocol: on Saturday the oven is heated and the animal is buried and on Sunday it is sold.
But before long he decided to fulfill the dream that he has had since he was 10 years old: to open a pozoleria. He opened La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal in the summer of 2022. Customers were somewhat scarce during the heat of that summer, but in winter things changed and the restaurant took off.
“My grandmother says: ‘If you are going to do it, do it well. Do not sell to sell, offer quality. Something that touches the soul and the bones,’” Avila says. “When someone says that the pozole reminded him of his grandmother, or his mother... there goes our essence. When someone learns and opens their mind… there goes our essence.”
Natalia Otero is a freelance writer based in Bogota, Colombia.