Maya Rośa Latin BBQ: A slow burn to success
The chimichurri-glazed brisket mac and cheese bowl ($12) is the bestselling item from Miguel Martinez’s food truck. You’d think this would be something that might feed a young chef ’s conceit. But Martinez calls it his “ego-check dish.”
Because the whole thing was his cashier, Alyssa’s, idea.
“I was at a festival in Oviedo and the truck was so slow,” he recounts. It was surprising. Though each phase of Maya Rośa Latin BBQ’s business growth has been slow, it’s also been steady, solid. Zero line was a rarity.
“Every truck around me was so busy. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ”
His employee laid it out for him. He quotes her easily.
“Look,” she said, “you know how to cook, but your stuff is too fancy!’ Scale it down. Do food that a crowd like this wants and just put your twist on it. Do mac and cheese.”
“No!” he said, emphatically. “No! No! No!”
But then he thought about it. He had time. There was no line.
“I was like, ‘Fine. I’ll listen to you. I’ll do mac and cheese.
“Do it with the brisket,” she said. The brisket was a new special at the time, a hit.
“I said, ‘I’ll do it just to shut you up.’ ”
And so, the following week, at Tuesday’s popular Tasty Takeover food truck event in Orlando’s Milk District neighborhood, the dish debuted. Alyssa bet him it would sell better than anything. Martinez rolled his eyes.
“That night I sold 30 orders,” he says. “It’s been on the menu ever since.”
Giving the people what they want makes sense, but Martinez does it his way — with that Latin twist.
The creamy corkscrew mac — topped with a jalapeño cornbread crumb — comes piled with thicksliced brisket, 16-hours smoked.
Glistening emerald chimichurri gives the dish a pop of green that’s earthiness on the palate and hella pretty on Instagram.
Picture-perfect, too, are petite empanada pockets packed with tender smoked chicken (three for $8, 6 for $13), lightly dusted with tangy cotija. Same goes for the pulled chicken sandwich ($11 with one side) but this one’s a gloriously messy affair, the soft roll piled high with a mix of thick-shredded light and dark meats. We tried it alongside nicely seasoned fries, most of which were eaten in the box on the way home.
Maya Rośa is also a Longwood commissary kitchen, so if you don’t want to chase the truck, you can order by phone or online four days a week and pick it up yourself — as we did — or use a delivery app if you’re in the zone. I say call — this way you can ask about specials, like the tacos or brisket-topped burgers you won’t yet find on the online menu.
Maya Rośa is growing. It has been for quite some time. And Martinez has come a long way, taking a longer, more patient road than many other young chefs, to build it as carefully as the artful bowls he layers not only for preso, but to allow guests to taste each element before that inevitable scramble of smoky and creamy, crunch and tender.
A Le Cordon Bleu grad that hit culinary school on the heels of his high school diploma, Martinez started out at Fishbones in Lake Mary, where what began as an externship turned into six years of learning. Fry cook, then, one by one, salad, grill, sauté…
“I didn’t want to hop around to other jobs. I wanted to hone my craft,” he says.
Eventually, he made sous chef, learning administrative skills that served well later on.
These days, food costs likely figure big in the mix. He was 24 when they offered him the top job: head chef.
“You’re in culinary school. You see the chefs on TV and they’re like rock stars … it was my dream.”
Then, a nightmare. Martinez was diagnosed with cancer.
“It shook my whole world up … I couldn’t take the position. But in the middle of my down time, I said, ‘If I beat this, I’m going to get back there and keep pushing myself.”
He did and he has. Nearly 10 years and a host of gigs later, he’s cancer-free. And along the way, pivoted to catering. He began with pop-ups, to get his name out there. It was 2018.
“I’m Cuban. I know Latin food. I figured I’d do that.”
He called all the breweries. Only one called back, but it was a start.
His “with a twist” style emerged even then and guests liked it. He was invited back and on his third gig, met the brideto-be who’d become his first catering client.
Along the way, he came to know chef Guillermo Herrera and the team at the Pass Progressive. Helping them out on nights he wasn’t busy was more skill-building in the kitchen and for the truck he’d eventually spring for.
“People there were talking, sharing, teaching. Everyone was growing and wanted to see everyone else grow, too.”
He became a student at Tasty Takeover, showing up with a notepad.
“How many trucks are here? What are people selling? What is the vibe? What are the price points? Where’s the menu placement? You have such a small window of opportunity to impress the customers, make them feel important. If not, they’ll go to one of the other trucks out there.”
But they didn’t. “When I got into Tasty [Takeover], I felt like I made it!” he says. “Before, I wasn’t getting called back, now I’m getting weddings and events booked into 2020, noticed by promoters, 30-40-truck festivals. My food is getting noticed, people were coming…!”
Then: COVID. And cancellations.
The slow burn reignited as apartments began bringing in trucks for families who, amid the pandemic, were no longer going out. With it came a shift in menu from the “foodier” festival and event scene. Barbecue, which began as a side project with a friend, began to take root.
Pork ribs — smoked, fried, grilled — with a natural
dark bark, a bite before it gently pulls from bone. A little sugar in the seasoning helps it all caramelize. Glaze ‘em with a guava-serrano BBQ sauce, or a Carolina mustard punched up with ancho chiles. The newest, and already most popular, is a honey-habanero infused Alabama white.
The integrity and tradition of the sauces and meats are intact. Martinez just bends it a little. The baked beans — creamy, not unlike New Orleans-style reds — are punctuated with crisp onions. Like the art of BBQ itself, the business has been a slow, thoughtful burn.
In the beginning, his friend would smoke the briskets, now he’s doing 20 pork butts on a good day, brisket, too, and ribs, all by himself.
“Each phase takes so much patience,” he says, noting that he has seen many great restaurants grow too fast, and suffer. “I’ve always had concepts, but my main focus has been honing them, going slow.”
The same way he makes every plate of that brisket mac — heating the pasta and sauce to order, making it shine with a hit of stock before plating it up for customers patient enough to wait for something special.
That’s gotta do wonders for the ego.
If you go: 1644 N. Ronald Reagan Blvd. in Longwood (takeout or delivery only); 407-949-2151; mayarosabbq.com
Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.