The chef behind some of Denver’s most beloved modern Mexican food has opened a “listening bar,” referencing the concept’s Japanese origins on the menu and spotlighting mezcal and Latin music.
Malinche Audiobar, 1541 Platte St., is Jose Avila’s long-awaited follow-up to La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal, which opened near Coors Field in 2021. It’s the first of several new concepts that Avila — who has been repeatedly recognized by the Michelin Guide and the James Beard awards — is working to open in the city. Listening bars in Japan are places where people can sip whiskey, smoke cigarettes and listen to jazz records on a high-fidelity sound system.
Like La Diabla, Malinche is a den for lovers of Mexico City, where Avila is from, albeit smaller, with a 35-person occupancy. (It takes reservations through Resy.) Its narrow hall, located along Platte Street’s strip of cocktail bars, coffee shops and restaurants, has barely enough room in the back for Avila’s team to prepare the food on the menu.
“At the end of the day, music and food, and especially good mezcals, bring people together,” Avila said recently, seated at a high top in his new space. Soon, he’ll sell tacos from a trailer parked on the street to the nighttime crowd as well.
More of a snack bar than a full-on restaurant, Avila’s small menu is titled “Nikkei-Mexa.” The word “Nikkei” refers to both immigrants from Japan and a style of food that mixes Japanese and Peruvian traditions.
In Malinche’s case, “Nikkei-Mexa” means that instead of chips-and-dip, he is serving the licorice-flavored plant, hoja santa, fried in tempura batter and topped with cream of huitlacoche, a delectable corn fungus that is garnering attention in Denver. The tamales, made from nixtamalized corn masa (corn that is ground into flour in a specific way) and filled with rabbit meat braised in miso and pasilla pepper, are wrapped in dark-green Mexican pepper leaves (acuyo leaf). And the crudo is a “blanket” of raw tuna with Spanish sausage underneath, seasoned with a miso, guajillo and yuzu sauce.
Spherical jugs of different mezcals dangle from a rope slung across the bar. Bartenders pour from the jugs throughout the night, whether that’s for flights of mezcal or for bespoke cocktails, which were developed by Dragan Milivojevic and range between $14 and $16 .
Just as important, though, is the music. Diego Andrés Martinelli — who helped open the music venue Public Records in New York City, where some of the world’s best DJs grace state-of-the-art sound systems — and sound engineer Darrien Williamson equipped the bar with its speakers, amplifiers, turntables and mixer.
On the night of the opening, Williamson christened the turntable with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl From Ipanema.” At other times, Avila’s streaming playlist of Latin rock, cumbia and Andean music serenaded guests through the speakers.
Malinche’s walls, save for one made of red brick, are splattered with a mixture of adobe, clay and hay, and the ceiling is covered with panels of brown curtains hanging at different heights. The ideas came from bars in Mexico and Thailand, respectively, Avila explained. It was only after designing the interior that he learned it also provides excellent sound insulation.
With Malinche’s launch, Avila’s next anticipated openings are a restaurant next to Union Station, a food hall adjacent to La Diabla and a permanent home for El Borrero Negro, where he slowly barbecues animals in an underground pit. Currently, that operation is taking place behind La Diabla, at 2233 Larimer St., on weekends.
“This is my first small restaurant that I opened, and it’s just so cool to see it actually happening,” he said.
