Vibin’ with the Ville Co.

Local beef tacos. Photos by Jessica Ashley Silva

Humboldt is deep into a new foodie era: Food trucks and pop-ups have entered the chat. Mobile food businesses, which used to be few and far between, have arrived in numbers now, rivaling the classic brick-and-mortar-style dining, bringing new formats and flavors to foodies yearning for expanded options. With food stands and trucks lining the streets at every farmers market, festival and community event, we’re now spoiled for choice from small-batch creators with the freedom to flex their creativity through evolving menus and innovative collaborations. When you find yourself returning to the same stand for more, and lightly stalking its Instagram account to see where they’ll pop up next, you know you’ve found a good one.

The Ville Co., owned by chef Marvin Ventura, appeared on the Humboldt food scene in 2021. His core offerings are rooted in his Afro-Salvadoran heritage — pupusas, tacos and soups to die for, to name a few — but with elements of fusion and time that bring everything to a heightened level. When Ventura started cooking professionally, he originally did not want to cook Salvadoran food, a sentiment many of us share over the food we grew up eating “I was tired of it,” he says, “but when I started my business, I decided I wanted to start with elevating these traditional dishes, like curtido, which I never really  liked, but I decided to perfect my own recipe with purple cabbage instead of green.” He goes on to describe his process for his purple curtido, which includes infusing apple cider vinegar with all the right spices so the traditional pupusa accompaniment becomes a co-star instead of an afterthought.  

Traditional birria de chiva.

This is the consistent theme to Ventura’s food: treating each ingredient and each process as if it’s the star of the show. While he’s always tended toward organic ingredients, moving to Humboldt influenced his ethos of cooking in-season. “I now understand farm to table. I come from the hood, so I really appreciate what it means to people here to keep the streets clean, both the streets outside and inside your body,” he says. By sourcing fresh produce from the local Harvest Hub and farmers markets, including from Happy Heart Farm and Woven Hearts Herb Farm, his menus stay fresh, exciting and spontaneous. His homemade masa, while not sourced locally, is still sourced thoughtfully, however.

A common thread in many of the dishes dreamed up at the Ville Co. is the masa. Ventura sources heritage grains from different states in Mexico; all the corn used in his kitchen comes from non-GMO, certified organic heirloom cultivars (except the purple corn, which is non-GMO sourced from Peru). His process for each batch lasts two and a half days, from cooking down the starches in calcium hydroxide, to steeping it, to stone grinding to the perfect consistency. “Heirloom corn is amazing, it’s a huge difference in flavor when you’re using store-bought corn flour versus grinding your own. I invite everyone to try heirloom corn to see how they’ve been missing out with store-bought tortillas.” 

The masa, essentially, is the traditional foundation to the local bounty he transforms, from tacos to chips, tostadas and even a pizza crust collab. A recent batch of tacos, for example, featured a seductively marbled Foggy Bottoms Boys flank steak, marinated and grilled to perfection, topped with fresh cilantro, onion and homemade salsa, all on top of fresh blue corn tortillas. His pupusas — a blend of three cheeses with loroco (edible vine flowers common in Central America) — are, perhaps the best introduction to his heritage grain masa and the full flavor it lends to the dish. And for a little crunch, drying and frying the masa into fresh chips makes the perfect vehicle for his Peruvian ceviche, made of fresh hunks of local halibut cooked in an acidic bath of leche de tigre, a dynamite marinade of lime juice, onion, garlic and fish stock. “The same love and passion I have for corn is the same I have for stocks and broth. Taking the time to cook it down, all the steps, I love it,” says Ventura.

Peruvian ceviche and homemade chips.

If the masa doesn’t fully knock your socks off, his soups surely will. With winter and soup season rolling in, the soups at the Ville Co. are a must-try experience with a depth of flavor indicative of the labor of love pouring into each pot. The birria de chiva — traditional birria made with goat — is a deep crimson broth reduced into a thick consistency over 10 hours, packed with heat and absolutely no gaminess. “A lot of people in our culture are too quick and impatient; you’ve got to cook low and slow,” he says, which helps the goat taste just like the most tender beef. Then there’s the verde chicken posole, bright and spicy, with organic chicken, hominy, and featuring another 10-hour stock. The pièce de résistance is a garnish of the most intensely flavorful fried chicken skin that’s ever graced your lips (it’s, admittedly, rage-inducing that an entire trough of that chicken skin isn’t served with each bowl). For a little hint of Asian fusion, he tops it off with some homemade chili oil. If the devil’s in the details, it explains why his food feels so sinfully delicious.

The Ville Co. regularly collaborates with local chefs to make unexpected fusions for pop-up events, but his partnership with local chef Alex Hoy of Food with Hoy marries Latin and Asian cuisines into a flavor explosion greater than the sum of its parts. “We clicked over the grill and kept getting together to curate menus. A lot of people talk about food and ingredients and like the same things, but you can’t just work with everyone. Together, we’re like Shaq and Kobe, we elevate each other in the kitchen.” It’s this spirit of collaboration that challenges Ventura to consistently present top tier innovations coming out of the kitchen while still honoring and perfecting traditional flavors and techniques.  

Pupusas with three cheeses and loroco.

Verde chicken posole with fried chicken skin.

The Ville Co. pops up at various locales around Humboldt. Ventura can be found posted up at the Arcata farmers market each Saturday throughout summer and following on social media is the best way to catch his pop-up and event schedule. His heritage grain tortillas, under his brand Calixto Bodega, can be found at both Eureka Natural Food and North Coast Co-Op locations in northern Humboldt. This winter, he plans to launch on DoorDash so the community can savor his creations on demand.

The Ville Co.
100 Ericson Ct., Ste. 100F, Arcata
(562) 855-3064
theville.co
Facebook: TheVilleCo.
Instagram: TheVilleCo.

The Ville Co. credo.