6 Questions with Edwin Sandoval of Xatrucho on Honduran Cuisine, Operating In A Food Hall, Advice For New Restaurateurs

Read time: 10 min

By Sophie Braker

Edwin Sandoval strives to bring his Honduras roots to his cooking at his concept Xatrucho. Born in Honduras and raised in Colorado, Edwin has spent twelve years in the culinary industry working at restaurants like Le Grand Bistro, Argyll Whisky Beer, and Telegraph Bistro. His concept Xatrucho has spanned several iterations including a pop- up restaurant and at a food hall. To learn more about Edwin’s journey, watch BSP397: Edwin Sandoval of Xatrucho on Honduran Cuisine from Pop-Up to Food Hall to Catering.

First restaurant job?

Believe it or not my very first job was as a front of the house person. I was fourteen or fifteen years old. I was working at a barbeque place in Colorado Springs. I worked as a host and also as a busboy. It was called Howards Pit Barbeque in the North Side of Colorado Springs.

What’s a food / drink you always have on hand at home?

I try not to drink at home very much. But I love having a little bit of Mezcal. I love the smokeyness, the really nice bite that it has. It's almost like chewing on rubber bands. When it comes down to food, I am very particular about the way that I eat. I fast throughout the day so whenever I eat at home, I like making five or six dishes. Then I go to town. I tell myself this is my one meal of today. I make sure that it is traditional, healthy, and something fresh. There is a lot of food that carries through to my concept. As a chef, the first rule I learned at the very beginning is: If you’re not going to eat it yourself then you shouldn't serve it to anyone else. I took that into literal terms. That’s how I developed my cooking style. If I’m going to be tasting my food throughout the day then I need to cook food that I feel good consuming myself. 

What does Xatrucho mean? 

When I developed this brand and this company, the biggest thing was how to hold myself accountable to a project that I could continue even if things became extremely hard. I wanted something that I wasn’t going to drop just because things got complicated. If I started a project, I didn’t want to leave it half way. 

I’m from Honduras and that is really dear to me. People from Honduras are called Los Catrachos. That term came from an old general in 1856 whose last name was Xatruch. For me what I wanted to do with the concept and the history and with the way that I cook was how can I bring everything together and try to make this as much of an essence of a person as possible. How can I form a business model around this? 

I enjoy classic cooking techniques. I want to apply that to Latin American ingredients and cooking styles. It was a play on words. I decided to keep the “X” and pronounce it like a “C.” So whenever people see my concept and sound it out, anyone from Honduras would say Xatrucho sounds like Catrachos - this guy has to be from Honduras. 

It opened up the doors and the windows for people to have a conversation with me. Are you from Honduras? Are you from Central America? It helps me create my clientele. It allows people to make that connection themselves as opposed to me bugging them out. 

What's the dish that best represents Honduran cuisine?

In the beginning of my career, I moved a little bit away from my culture. There was a point where it just clicked: What am I really doing? Why am I cooking food that doesn’t represent me? I steered back into applying more Honduras dishes and more flavor profiles into the concept. 

One of my favorite things when I was a kid in Honduras was pastelitos. I always tell people there is a big difference between a Honduran pastelito and an empanada. Even though they look very similar with the same shape, they are very different. A traditional empanada is made out of flour. It has a lot of gluten. A pastelito is made from fresh ground corn. So you have this essence of really fresh masa. Traditionally in Honduras, you would stuff it with a little bit of rice, ground beef, and a little bit of potato. In my concept, I have three. I have a classic one that has red masa. I have one that is vegan that has yellow masa. And another one with green masa with a little bit of cheese in it. The thought was to have something traditional but also let's try to accommodate our clientele. A lot of folks who enjoy our food happen to be vegans or vegetarians. I didn’t want to deny them the opportunity to taste something that’s so dear to me and something so representative of Honduras. 

What's your biggest lesson from opening in a food hall?

I’ve always been very careful about the way I carry my concept around the city and around the state of Colorado. We primarily started out as a pop up concept. It was always about that progression. At the food hall, we made a contract for about six months. The idea was to try it out. Let’s get our feet wet. Let’s see if this is something that could work out for us. We just finished that partnership about a month ago. 

The lesson that I have learned throughout the years is to always take my time. I decided that this concept from the very beginning would be a lifetime project. I would put it in as many different formats as possible to figure out the best fit for it. It goes back to the idea of never dropping this concept. It's always been about trial and error. And that trial and error has led me to a point where I see that maybe being in a food hall isn’t the best thing and maybe just doing pop ups all the time is not the best thing. It's about having a combination of being out in the public and being able to offer our food, but at the same time focusing on doing more private events and catering. We’re tapping into a market that hasn’t always been done. Personally, I’ve never really seen fresh Latin inspired cuisine made from scratch from a chef’s perspective to be in the catering and in the private event world. That’s where I figure my concept will fit the best. 

Best advice for new restaurant owners?

I think it's a matter of knowledge. Definitely patience in acquiring that knowledge. I think a lot of the time we think that the process is streamlined. It's also just figuring out the type of cuisine that you want to do and how you are going to present it. 

The most important thing for me has been developing a concept that kept me grounded. It meant so much to me as a person and as a chef. It didn’t matter how hard things were getting. I just always knew it wasn’t going to die. If a partnership doesn’t work out, if the pandemic comes around, if a second pandemic comes around, nothing is going to stop. We are going to continue being. It's a strong essence of understanding who you are as the operator and what the concept itself embodies. 

We actually just finished up our time at Grange Food Hall about a month and a half ago. Coming out of the pandemic, I wanted to be in a location where I could grow my staff and train my staff. Being in a couple of locations last year and these last twelve months gave me the opportunity to develop, not only my recipes to the fullest so we could streamline them, but developing my talented staff to a point where we can take this concept in any direction, forward in our trajectory. 

Honduras-born and Colorado-raised, Edwin Sandoval is a modern multicultural creator of food. Chef Sandoval spent 12 years moving through the ranks of professional kitchens. In 2012 at age of 21 and armed with a culinary arts degree he appeared on the Denver scene as a sous chef at Le grand bistro & Oyster bar and moved around the city to absorb culinary skills at places like Spuntino and Beatrice & Woodsley. As a young professional of 23 Chef Sandoval helped open Argyll Whisky Beer in uptown Denver as Chef de Cuisine and at age 25 he took on Executive Chef position at Telegraph bistro.