From food truck to brick-and-mortar: Authentic Ecuadorian restaurant opens

Their menu is small but big on flavor as Jacksonville husband and wife chefs introduce an authentic taste of Ecuador to Northeast Florida at a homey diner.

Chancho King recently opened at 1120 Edgewood Ave. S. in Murray Hill. The diner from restaurant veterans Chason Spencer and Maria Delia La Mota Guerra is the first Ecuadorian restaurant in Northeast Florida.

The restaurant offers authentic cuisine rooted in traditional family recipes. It is Ecuadorian comfort food typically served on home tables or offered by street vendors in the small coastal country in South America.

"We're living off that dream of, if you make good food, people will come," Spencer said of their four-year path that began in 2019 as a pop-up sandwich shop at neighborhood events to a food truck at Riverside Arts Market to a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Small menu, big flavors

The Murray Hill diner is an opportunity, the couple said, to share not only the cuisine but also the culture and warm hospitality of Ecuador.

Chancho means pork in Ecuador's native language — Quechua — as well as in Spanish, which is the country's official language. And pork is king on the diner menu, which is a taste of home for Guerra.

The pork for the signature sandwich that launched the restaurant as well as the entrees, munchies, ceviche and aqua fresca all are made fresh from scratch at the diner. The bread for the sandwiches comes from Village Bread & Bagel in Jacksonville.

Time is a crucial ingredient in their food. Preparing the pork takes almost three days from start to finish, the couple said.

"Building flavor takes time," Guerra said.

The pork is seasoned in a brine and then slow-roasted using a recipe Spencer developed over the years.

"We do a three-day marinade … and cook it overnight. So, it's cooked for 12 hours," Spencer said. "We take all of the liquid that comes off of the pork when we cook it, strain it and basically reduce it more to intensify that flavor and use that to season the pork."

On the menu at Chancho King

• Pork Sandwich ($7): Pork, hot pepper aji, mild tomato aji, lime pickled red onions and pork cracklings

• Choripan Sandwich ($7): Chorizo, chimichurri, lime pickled red onions and Chancho aioli

• Arroz Con Menestra Y Carne ($15): A choice of pork, chorizo, chicken or mushroom then served with white rice, lentil stew and patacones

• Llapingacho ($17): A choice of pork, chorizo, chicken or mushroom served with cheese potato cakes, rice, fried egg and peanut sauce

• Plantain bowl ($13): A choice of pork, chorizo, chicken or mushroom served over plantain chips, hot pepper aji, mild tomato aji, lime pickled red onions and Chancho aioli

• Seco De Pollo ($16): Leg and thighs chicken stew, white rice and sweet plantains

• Sango ($17): Plantain stew, seafood, peanuts, white rice, lime

Among the munchies, customer favorites include Pan De Yuca ($6), fried cheese and yuca balls; Maduro Con Queso ($8), sweet plantains and cheese topped with salprieta "peanut sauce;" and Chifles ($3 or $6 depending on size), green plantain chips.

Chancho King also is known for its Ecuadorian ceviche they describe as "very different" from other Latin American versions of the fresh seafood dish. Instead of just lime, Chancho King ceviche uses fish or shrimp stock and a peanut base, they said. The dish soon will be back for Sunday brunch after a temporary hiatus while they moved into the diner.

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A taste of home

"The whole menu is very nostalgic. It is the food I had at home. It's not pretentious at all. It's just easy, homey food," Guerra said.

Together for 10 years, the couple met in culinary school. Each has a dozen years of professional cooking experience, working their way up the ranks in local restaurant kitchens — Restaurant Orsay, Black Sheep and most recently, TPC Sawgrass — before launching Chancho King in June 2019.

They started out selling their pork sandwiches under a tent at pop-ups at local businesses, getting them through the COVID-19 pandemic and laying the foundation for the diner.

Their love of cooking is rooted in family — his in Cocoa Beach and hers in Guayaquil, Ecuador — where the kitchen was the heart of their homes. His parents would hold a neighborhood pig roast each year. Her grandmother always had room for one more at her table. Both excellent home cooks, his dad and her grandmother were their inspiration to pursue culinary careers, Spencer and Guerra said.

"I grew up enjoying my grandmother's food. I didn't start cooking Ecuadorian cuisine until I moved to the States. Just because I missed it, I started doing it," she said.

Spencer also developed a passion for her grandmother's cooking as well as overall Ecuadorian cuisine when they visited her family.

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They want the diner to be a gathering place in the community — a comfortable venue for families, friends, neighbors and strangers to come together, relax and enjoy themselves.

"Honestly, I think we're in the business of nurturing. We're here to take care of people together and try to give them a good time," he said.

Chancho King is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Takeout hours at Aardwolf Brewing Company are 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Teresa Stepzinski is the dining reporter for the Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter @TeresaStepz or reach her via email at tstepzinski@jacksonville.com.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ecuadorian restaurant Chancho King opens in Jacksonville's Murray Hill