Jesse Valenciana is a Chicago-born, Nashville-based author, food nerd, and the guy behind Secret Bodega—a street food–inspired restaurant that started as a pop-up and never stopped pushing the envelope. He’s written ManBQue, Eat Street, and most recently Birrias, all celebrating big flavors and the stories behind them. Jesse’s all about live-fire cooking, flipping tradition on its head, and making food that hits both your taste buds and your heart. We got the chance to get inside his mastermind behind the food that Nashville can’t get enough of.
Tell us about yourself!
I don’t see myself as a chef, even though I’ve had countless chefs tell me that I am one because of what I’ve done culinarily. I’m most comfortable referring to myself as a food entrepreneur or cookbook author.
Grilling and live fire cooking always intrigued me. I started a grilling club in Chicago that became pretty big, and led to two published cookbooks, at its peak had international chapters and got a primetime feature on the Today Show! Let me tell you, you’ve never lived until you’ve had a smug Al Roker pay you a backhanded compliment on national television.
Food was never something that I thought I would ever get into professionally. Marketing was my true passion. I certainly always loved food, but I never really had a desire to work in a kitchen or cook myself.
Life doesn’t let you make the rules. Sometimes it just sweeps you off your feet, drops a massive crush on a beautiful woman on your lap, and the next thing you know you’re doing food pop-ups and living in Nashville. *shrug* What are you gonna do?
How would you describe what you’re creating and what you want people to experience when they eat your food?
Secret Bodega is essentially a window into my food brain. I was proudly born and raised in Chicago. That city made the world smaller with its abundance of culture and ethnic neighborhoods. Let’s say you wanted Thai food; well, there wasn't just a Thai restaurant, there was a neighborhood full of them that spanned all regions of the country. It’s a beautiful thing. Having this kind of exposure to so much diverse food is a super power.
What you have with our creations are bold flavors driven by nostalgia since the memories of what I ate growing up dictate so much of what I cook; with the ultimate goal of creating those fond culinary memories for the people we feed.
Where did the idea for Secret Bodega come from?
My partner Audrey and I have a deep connection through food and cooking so we wanted to share the foods that we loved and missed from back home. This is our opportunity to make these foods, we were very deliberate in doing it our way and the way we wanted people to remember what we fed them.
The biggest reason we started with pop-ups was that it was a relatively manageable point of entry into the business of food, plus we didn’t have the money or desire to open a traditional restaurant. Doing pop-ups was like playing in a rec league softball game; where even if you don’t win the game, you still have a great time. Owning a restaurant is the major leagues and if you don’t hit home runs consistently, guess what? You’re out of the league real quick and your only hope is that Netflix pays you peanuts to share your depressing, fall-from-grace biopic to a completely new and unsympathetic audience.
Your tagline is “street & comfort food through a global lens.” What does that mean to you?
To me, street food IS comfort food. Whether it’s a melty cheesesteak, a “baptized” Italian beef or a stupidly overstuffed, steak burrito with French fries. These are truly American street food dishes that come from very specific cities and regions; in this case Philadelphia, Chicago and San Diego.
With our food, we take our favorite street foods and take them on a trip. Imagine your birria studied abroad in Shanghai; now you’ve got birria soup dumplings. That's street 7 comfort food through a global lens.
There’s a lot of nostalgia behind your food. Are there particular childhood foods, cultural influences, or memories that continue to inspire the menu?
Memories will always inspire my food. Whether it’s those of being in Mexico, eating all those fresh, vibrant flavors, or the aromas that come from a Chicago hot dog stand, or neighborhood pizza spot that still put me into a trance.
I never create something without thinking of these things. That’s the culture and the memories that drive my passion for making food.
You’ve become known for creative collaborations and pop-ups around Nashville. What is it about collaborating with others that you enjoy so much?
I love people and I love creating, so creating with people is the best thing. I’m not a classically trained chef, so I don’t have that lousy, Gordon Ramsey gene that makes you believe you can do no wrong. I believe that I have some really good ideas, but I’m also surrounded by countless talented and passionate people with just as many great ideas and skills so I know if we put our strengths together, we can make magic that can be shared by all.
It’s a wonderful feeling when you taste something great and you can look at your collaborator and say, “WE made that!”
What has been one of your favorite—or most unexpected—Secret Bodega pop-ups or collaborations so far?
Wow. That’s not a fair question. There've been so many great collaborations/pop-ups with so many excellent humans and they all have a piece of my heart. There’s two that really meant so much to me on so many levels.
My very first pop-ups were collabs with Maiz De La Vida and chef Julio Hernandez. Julio essentially welcomed me to Nashville, brought me into the food eco-system of the town; which built the foundation of Secret Bodega. The best thing about it was Julio was just being a friend to a stranger, but to me it was the act of a leader and a mentor.
Last year I was part of a collaboration event that was truly a full circle moment. Bill’s Sandwich Palace, which is my Nashville food fam, and I travelled up to Chicago to pop-up at J.P. Graziano’s, which is my Chicago food fam. It was one of the most special and beautiful nights of my life, not just my food career. It was a magical homecoming filled with family, my best friends and I got to do it with two of the most iconic food businesses in the game.
You’ve had some pretty big moments, including winning Nashville Burger Week. What did that win mean to you and the team?
Winning Nashville Burger Week was real fun. It really made me feel like we belong! It meant a lot to the team because we were friends just helping out other friends. We weren't some hype restaurant with an army of cooks and team members. Nope, it was three people just cranking out literally thousands of tasty burgers fueled by pride, some Fernet, and a lot of electrolyte packed bevvies.
What do you think makes Nashville such a great city for this kind of food community and collaborative restaurant culture?
Nashville is finally getting some national recognition, which is long overdue because there’s so much talent in this town. Regardless, as a whole, we will never be put on the pedestal like the cutthroat, celeb chef clubhouses that New York, Chicago, and San Francisco can be.
I feel that the independent Nashville food business community sincerely cares for one another, going above and beyond to support and lift each other up on a consistent basis.
What’s next for Secret Bodega?
Secret Bodega will continue to collaborate. It's in our DNA and it’s one of our favorite things to do. Plus there’s so many homies we want to create with, so it's seemingly endless!
We just started selling our Northern Mexico style burritos on Uber eats from out of our team kitchen in The Nations. This style of burritos is more traditional, relying on the quality and flavor of ingredients more so than the number of them.
As much as we love to pop-up, which we will also always continue to do, we are currently working on opening a proper secret bodega in one of the absolutely raddest buildings in Nashville…(hint: it’s in Germantown). We’ll be slinging our housemade grab and go food items plus our fresh Northern Mexico-style breakfast and all-day burritos.
Keep up with Secret Bodega and where you can find them next!
“I’m also surrounded by countless talented and passionate people with just as many great ideas and skills, so I know if we put our strengths together, we can make magic.”