Chef Carlos Jurado of Selva is one of the city’s hardest-working chefs. And his upcoming pasta night, Fuego Lento, is proof of that.
Whether it is collaborations, like his recent, wonderful stint with Chef Saw Naing of Joplin’s and The Dutchess… Or shifting toward seasonal menus from here on out… Doing bi-weekly tasting menus… Or creating a “Colombian barbecue” offering on the weekends…
And this goes beyond the sheer creative output of Chef Carlos across the past year. The launch of Fuego Lento exemplifies his love of collaboration. He is not only using pasta from Chef Cameron Slaugh’s Nonna Mercato—”When you don’t have the capacity to do it on your own and your city is home to one of the best pasta makers around, you go with the best pasta maker around. And that is Chef Cam,” Chef Carlos said—but will debut the pastas alongside a longtime friend.
Fuego Lento will debut at his collab with Chef Waldo Stout of Due Fiori and Waldo’s Pizza on May 28.
The world of Latin American pasta is not new—and Chef Carlos honors that at Selva with Fuego Lento.
What is perhaps most gorgeously woven into Chef Carlos’s pasta menu is its simultaneous respect for the existing and push toward evolving the world of Latin American pasta. After all, pasta’s story in Latin America begins not as a native tradition but as an import. First through Spanish colonization. And later, through waves of European immigration, particularly from Italy. (Brazil and Argentina are home to the largest population of Italian descent outside of Italy proper.)
In nearly any Mexican or Mexican-American household, fideo or espagueti verde are common, comforting creations that are rightfully loved by all. And they are dishes that feel inherently Latino—despite where the base of them might have originated. The same goes for Argentine ñoquis or pasta with salsa Caruso.
Then, of course, the pasta of Peru, which Chef Carlos specifically focuses on, with riffs on two Peruvian classics. After all, Italian immigration left a more overt imprint on countries like Peru, where pasta became deeply embedded in national food culture.
Chef Carlos’s play on tallarines verdes has Selva-n touches: smoked cashews over walnut. Peppery hoja santa over spinach. Colombian queso fresco over Parmesan. And then his outright radiant tallarines a la huancaina, where the famed Peruvian cheese sauce is amped up with fermented ají amarillo.
Chef Carlos pushes the evolution of Latin American pasta most with his Colombian pastas…
But his two Colombian pastas is where Chef Carlos abandons tradition and aims to create new ones.
I’ve already lauded his pasta criollo, a gorgeous pasta that can be mechanically broken down into two parts: the incredible shape, casarecce lunghe, that comes from Chef Cameron. A beautifully elongated version of the hand-rolled pasta shape, it looks like a narrow strip of dough twisted into a loose scroll—almost like a thick, curled ribbon folded onto itself.
And then, the entirety of the creation itself, which feels like Selva in a bowl. It is doused in Chef Carlos’s heavenly hagao sauce—the same he uses to dress his equally stellar tomahawk pork chop—where heirloom tomatoes and black garlic combine with the slightest bit of cumin and turmeric and tons of scallion and cilantro… An ode to his mother’s caldo de pollo, this is a Colombian soup-turned-pasta that reeks of nostalgia, whether you’ve tasted it before or not.
In his most challenging, he creates a dish he says is “really for me—this is something I would eat at home:” his pasta en chupe. One for the onion lovers, this carb-on-carb, pasta-with-rice, doused-in-copious-circles-of-green-onion tagliatelle is a pasta dish unlike any other. Layered with smoky crema, queso fresco, and bits of fried garlic, this pungent, creamy dish feels like a wonderful late-night carb crash.
A look at the dishes of Fuego Lento, Selva’s upcoming weekly pasta night…
Head down and hyper-focused, yet open with a vulnerable culinary core, Chef Carlos Jurado’s inaugural pasta menu is superbly soulful in execution and stick-to-its-roots Selva in aura.
Pasta Criollo: Chef’s choice protein | hogao | crema | caldo de pollo | con casarecce lungo
Tallarines a la Huancaina: Aji amarillo | queso fresco | crema | caldo de pollo | con espagueti
Pasta en Chupe: Embered crema | green onion | queso fresco | con tagliatelle | served over mama’s rice
Tallarines Verdes: Creamy pesto | con espagueti
Selva’s Fuego Lento menu will debut on May 28 at Chef Carlos Jurado’s collaboration night with Chef Waldo Stout. Selva is located at 4137 E. Anaheim St.
