Louisville Mojo: Q&A with Bruce Ucan of The Mayan Café

Via multiple iterations of The Mayan Café (813 E. Market St.), owner-chef Bruce Ucan has dazzled Louisville diners for nearly 15 with his rustic Mayan cuisine. His is no chips and salsa Mexican, rather it's the food of his family, natives of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, foods rich in slow-roasted meats with chiles and peppers, complex moles and vegetables such as yucca, pumpkin seeds and plantain.

On the morning I was to interview him at 10 a.m., Ucan was late to the phone because he was shoveling snow off the sidewalk in front of his restaurant—little rest for an owner-operator. After apologizing needlessly, he talked about running one of the area's most unique and innovative restaurants.

You're very determined to use nearly all locally raised products in your restaurant: why?

The reality is it's better food. It tastes better and is better for you.

But the cost: it's significantly more, right?

Yes, as far as produce goes, it's probably 50 to 75 percent more expensive. My costs for pork went from $1.50 to $6 a pound after I changed and went local. Some beef tenderloin I can buy for $10 to $11 a pound, but for grass fed tenderloin it's 15 to 17 a pound. But we want to do it. It's the right thing to do, and it's an investment in the local economy.

How do you keep menu prices in line when you're food cost is high?

Farming is hard work, and I understand why they charge $34 for a case of tomatoes. Even charging that much, it's hard for them to make money in that. Still, I try really hard to keep prices really reasonable. I have to charge $25 for a steak to be able to support what I'm doing. People go to steakhouses and pay $35 or $40 for prime or choice beef, and it's good meat. But it's not as good as grass-fed.

Is it harder to rely on local foods when you're working to serve Mayan cuisine?

That's something we run into sometimes. We can't get all the ingredients we want because of where we are, and so we have to accept that we can't lose the vision of what the restaurant is, of who we are. You can't get cactus and tomatillos from local farmers, but because of what we do, we have to have it. It's a balance. We have to keep our roots while we do this.

So what do you do to make up for those ingredient shortfalls?

So we sometimes do a fusion, transform recipes in our own way. The Europeans get the freshest ingredients they possibly can and in season, but they transform them by the way they cook them. That's what we do, too: we transform them by the way we season and cook.

Do you believe customers appreciate the fact that you use local foods?

The majority do care, but I believe some don't care at all. The regulars do care a lot; they say they do. Sometimes we get people from hotels, people from out of town, and they really get excited to see what we're doing.

You've picked a tough career, so what motivates you to do this every day?

That the customers like it: that keeps me going and makes me want to keep doing this. In this kind of business we're in, we're not going to make a lot of money. We'll be OK, but we're not going to be rich. So it's not money.

You've told me about the toll the work is taking on you physically: It's hard, isn't it?

My hands hurt from cooking, and my wife, Christina, tells me I need to take a rest. I'm working a little less and paying a person to cover me when I'm not there. I'm not going to kill myself. But after 25 years of using pans and knives, it hurts, and I don't have a strong grip any more.

But this is the price of working. That's what it takes. It hurts. The body wears out. I don't know how some chefs last as long as they do. When we were young, I liked the challenge of working that hard. It was like, 'I'll show you I can do that,' and we could. I can't work like I used to.

There's been a lot of talk that Market Street will turn into Louisville's next “restaurant row.” Would that be a good thing for your business?

Yes it would. It would be better for everybody. There would be more choices and that would encourage more people to come down here. They would know if one place was too busy to get into, they can go to another place; they'd have more options.

And we're different, too. There's no restaurant like ours: different flavors, different foods and a different concept.

So if this really did turn into a “restaurant row,” would you ever expand your restaurant and add more seats?

Probably not. I think I'm getting wiser, and I don't want to kill myself for this. I'm finally listening to my body and understanding that this is not worth dying for. You die for things you love the most, but I'm not going to do that.

How tough has it been to operate in this economy?

We've been very lucky that the economy hasn't affected us much. Last year, we had a 20 percent increase in sales when times were supposed to be bad. I think we're doing pretty good.

Bruce Ucan, owner-chef of the Mayan Cafe

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Rick Redding tue feb 23 2010 at 2:32 pm ·


	Had excellent lunch there today. Loved the plantains, great setting.

babytitmouse thu feb 25 2010 at 2:37 pm ·


	I ADORE this restaurant. The bf and I try to have a nice dinner out every couple of weeks or so. We want to try different restaurants, but we keep coming back to the Mayan. The food is to die for, the atmosphere is perfect and the staff are all so very friendly. I can't wait to eat there again.

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