Chef Jose Avila’s Malinche Audiobar is a Culinary, Creative, and Cultural Intersection

Building Bridges | High Quality Food to High-Alcohol Mezcal to Hi-Fi Sound

October 24, 2025 | Evan Dale

@malincheaudiobar

Chef Jose Avila has never shied away from seeing the entirety of his vision through. His lauded Denver haunt, La Diabla, was born from a simple fact noticed, and the simple idea it spurred. ‘You know, in Mexico City and the state of Guererro where I’m from, you can see pozolerias everywhere,’ he explained when we met earlier this year to disucss how his budding Denver domain got started, and where it’s all headed. ‘It’s something that I grew up with and when I moved here, it was nonexistent. But there were a lot of pho places on Federal, and I noticed they were always packed with Mexicans. At the time, me coming from Mexico City, there were no pho places, so I knew that us – we weren’t in there for the rice noodles. No fucking way. We were there for the broth. It’s spicy and there’s fresh lime juice. So that’s how the idea for La Diabla came about. Pozole is basically about the same kinds of things.” A few years later, not only is La Diabla – which serves a lot more than just pozole, to be clear - a cornerstone of Denver’s restaurant scene, but Chef Avila and his talented team – industriously farming, ranching, growing, and producing so many of the ingredients and products used across their expanding culinary empire – are a blueprint for the hard-earned realization of true creative independence.

At the time of our conversation, Chef Avila was laying the framework to build out the vacant warehouse adjacent to La Diabla that he had just signed the lease for. The space is to be a multi-concept food hall and that morning was the warehouse’s first service for El Borrego Negro – the first of those concepts – which every weekend since has continued to serve authenticity in the form of slow-cooked, hoyo-barbecued lamb and rabbit on fresh-made nixtamal tortillas with herbs, lime, and salsas – all house made, of course. There are also huitlacoche quesadillas and micheladas served in plastic cups.

Now – just a few months later – he’s at the beginning of yet another exciting chapter, this one a multisensory experience that tethers his love and expertise for food and drink to an even more dynamic creative space.

Malinche Audio Bar is Chef Avila’s intersection between his established propensity for immense flavors on the plate, what he and his bar team – led by Dragan Milivojevic – have been pouring from the shaker tins into the coupe, all meeting with his love for music and his respect for Japanese listening bar and culinary cultures. On Platte Street in Denver – one neighborhood over from his Larimer Street flagship – Malinche is taking what he’s already created culinarily, receiving accolades from – among others – Michelin and Bon Appetite, and weaving in the importance that music has played in his personal and professional paths.

It's in those even deeper intersections of self where the concept of Malinche was born. “La traductora,” Chef Avila began, introducing the polarizing historical figure whose name, along with her parallels to his own life, informed that of the concept. “Malinche was a translator between two worlds, and that’s exactly what Malinche Audiobar is. I’ve always been that bridge, in every kitchen, translating between la raza and the English-speaking crew, between cultures, trying to make both sides understand each other. This place keeps that same energy. It translates flavor, sound, and story between Mexico and Japan, between old and new, between Denver and el DF, my hometown. It’s all about that in-between, where translation turns into creation.”

Yet the details of Malinche feel like anything but a grey area. Its every aspect – from the mud-straw walls to the hi-fi sound – are deeply intentional. The space itself is intimate, to say the least. A bar top serpentines its way from the mid-depth of the shallow single room, underneath handmade glass floral light fixtures glowing red, reminiscent of much of Mexico City’s vast barscape. Behind the bar, the bar itself, of course, but also the kitchen and the control center for Malinche’s crown jewel.

What would an audiobar be without audio? And what audiobar worth its salt wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth – or at least to the bottom of their pockets – to ensure the sound is perfect, and unapologetically loud?

Hanging near the storefront windows and facing the intimate dining room, two massive Klipsch Cornwall IV’s in cherrywood. Two Klipsch Heresy IV’s round out the sound at the bar. In the control deck – allowing the whole system to seamlessly transition from digital sound to vinyl – a red ARS 9100B mixer, a Genelec 8030C Studio Monitor, and two Technic SL-1200 MK7 turntables. As for the vinyl itself – records from across Latin America, spanning a mosaic of genre to meet any moment, spinning a soundtrack to stamp an exclamation point on any time of night, and again helping translate art and iseas between cultures.

And what would an audiobar be without the bar program? Levitating above the backbar, green glass eggs housing three different mezcals available only in-house, and only accessible through a hose and pour spout extending from each. On the cocktail menu, mononymous drinks, each name pointing to its main ingredient of inspiration. The Tomatillo is a silky, sweet coupe served with a playful rice paper garnish. The Maiz is expectedly smoky and vegetal. The Pepita is autumn in a glass. And the Wasabi – beware to those who oppose the strong, Japanese root – is exceptionally balanced, offsetting the wasabi’s intensity with refreshing green notes.

The Japanese nuances extend to the food menu, too. There, the Maitake al Copal explodes with earthy and smoky mushroom, nostalgic for cool weather. The Pulpo is cooked to buttery perfection and is served in a shallow black pool that pays homage to the sweet earthiness of both Japanese Miso and Mexican Mole. The Sabana de Atún is glazed with miso-guajillo-yuzu tare and plated underneath agave cured egg yolk and pickled nopal. And the Sopecidos de papada de cerdo, made from red, blue & yellow corn, are all filled with slow-roasted pork jowl, and separately fold in in miso-achiote & apple, black garlic, seaweed & mezcal onion, and fermented pineapple & xoconostle.

Like any restaurant, it’s not only the food or the drinks that make an experience special. The atmosphere and the service are obviously important, too. But what makes Malinche so vastly unique and necessary in Denver – at a time in history where there’s an outsized need for conversation and collaboration between cultures – are the thoughtful intersections of all things atmosphere, audio, bar, and kitchen. Your Tempura de Hoja Santa isn’t only paired with your Mezcal Verde and your Carta Blanca, it’s also served up with the hi-fidelity Afro-Cuban sounds of Perez Prado.