Selva Verified listing

Chef Carlos Jurado is the epicenter of Selva, a space that has been recognized as one of the best in the region and one of the few spaces dedicated to Colombian cuisine.

Jurado’s pedigree is rarely mentioned by the chef—for example, he worked under Chef Jordan Kahn, the genius-meets-frustrating creative whose work at Vespertine was hailed as the region’s best by much-loved food critic Jonathan Gold before his death—but it nonetheless should be noted: Jurado has been in the game at some of its highest heights and while he never once to blindly chase accolades, he does see this as a way to flex his culinary muscles.

Joining him is bar manager Mike Borowski, the cocktail master behind Selva’s stellar bar program, had been a barback long before he ever formally stood behind a bar—and it is in that sense, his approach to creation has long been steeped in always being the apprentice first, understanding that learning, honing, and pivoting is clutch to having a successful cocktail program.

“Doing all that barbacking, I was lucky to have been under some really stellar bartenders,” Borowski said. “Being a barback, you can stumble into a lotta shitty work or just outright work under an awful human. And when I stepped into the mindset of anticipating what the bartender needed rather than just learning a recipe, I began to grasp a sense of both proactiveness and also studying off the clock.”

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Written and photos by Brian Addison