The journey to the creation of Animas Smoked Meats has been a long one, intersecting Durango several times before landing here.
Evan Seabourn grew up in Durango before moving to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he attended culinary school and met his wife Ingrid. They then moved back to Durango and then to Denver – eventually running a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, he said. After Sept. 11, they moved back to Denver, where he was an executive chef for a catering company.
“I kind of got tired ... and we moved down here,” Evan said. “But I started my old boss off with some smoked meats ... and I said, ‘you know what, I can do this somewhere else.’ So we moved back to Durango just before the pandemic in October of ’19. And that was my goal: to get our own business off the ground, and work for myself instead of somebody else.”
The Seabourns opened ASM in the middle of the pandemic last summer. It can currently be found serving food and drinks at the Durango Farmers Market on Saturdays and Fenceline Cider in Mancos on Sundays.
The menu changes, but always revolves around the food its named after, Evan said.
“I like to incorporate smoked meats, obviously, into what we’re doing,” he said. “I’ll take what would be a regular banh mi sandwich with pulled pork and do a smoked banh mi pulled pork sandwich. Or I’ll do barbecue, or we’ll do smoked brisket tacos, or we’ll do smoked pulled pork carnitas instead of your traditional regular carnitas.”
The menu changes weekly and tends to feature local ingredients,“ Ingrid said. For instance, the Smoked Chicken BBQ Tacos that ASM was serving on Saturday featured Fenceline Cider-braised chicken with a cherry barbecue sauce made from fruit from the cidery’s orchard.
In addition to the its regularly scheduled events, Animas Smoked Meats caters a variety of events including weddings and corporate parties, and isn’t limited to sandwiches and tacos. Evan said his culinary experience allows him to slip into specific cuisines such as Greek or Italian.
And he plans to grow ASM in the future.
“We’re looking to go brick-and-mortar or food truck, depending on what transpires,” he said. “I grew up in Durango and moved back here because I love it, and I want to spread my experience and all my flavors and good food to everybody here.”
ngonzales@durangoherald.com
