“Bordo, more than anything else, is based on one question,” chef Michael Serva says. “What does the town of Marfa really need?”
After years spent manning the James Beard Award-nominated kitchen at Cochineal, Serva was well aware the town already had a fancy, fine-dining establishment. And despite being gifted a pizza oven that he schlepped across the country, the chef recognized that there were already three spots to grab a pie. Burritos, bagels, and even a wine garden were out. Instead, Serva homed in on something that both tapped into his family heritage and wasn’t cost-prohibitive to the community: Italian sandwiches.
“It’s like I put a bucket in the middle of the desert and said it’s going to rain,” he claims. “And strangely, it did.”
Originally from Windsor, California, Serva always knew he wanted to work in restaurants. His Italian surname means “to serve,” and the family’s passion for food goes back four generations. His great-grandfather was a butcher, his grandfather a restaurateur, and his father both a butcher and fishmonger. Serva spent several years working at top San Francisco restaurants before one of his close friends, who was born and raised in the Marfa area, called him about an opportunity at Cochineal.
Although unfamiliar with Texas—and envisioning nothing but cacti and cowboys—Serva needed a job. Once he arrived in Marfa, he immediately fell in love with the town—not to mention the restaurant’s bartender, Hannah Texie Bailey. Together, the couple learned as much as they could about the members of the community, and more specifically, what they craved. “I knew how everyone liked their steak cooked, and Hannah knew exactly how they liked their martinis prepared,” he recalls.
After a brief chef de cuisine and restaurant consulting stint in Houston in 2021, the duo returned a few years later. Armed with nothing more than the pizza oven, they purchased a former 1930s-era mechanic shop to house their dream concept. There was just one big problem: Sourcing was difficult to come by in the desert, whether it was produce, charcuterie, or bread. Regarding the latter, Serva realized he’d have to take matters into his own hands, even if it meant baking in a temperamental pizza oven.
Taking an honest assessment of the tools at his disposal, the chef decided to base his fresh bread off puccia, a Puglian ciabatta-like loaf made from pizza dough. Even by the loosest definitions, Serva doesn’t prepare a traditional example at Bordo. His interpretation is admittedly “misshapen, undermixed, and burnt,” but that “mistake bread” turns out to be the glue holding everything together. Its unique curvature fits perfectly in the hand, and because the bread is filled with air, the crumb molds itself to the cured meats and cheeses, binding all the ingredients into one tasty package.
It’s that kind of bootstrapping that weaves its way through the heart of Bordo, which roughly translates to “border.” Serva’s enterprising spirit is evidenced in the procurement of salamis from Journeyman Meat Co. in California and other cured meats bought directly from Italy. He mills his own flour and shapes his own pasta, putting it out in the desert air to dry. The results are utilized in rotating specials such as a pasta rustica made from squat radiatori dotted with ground finocchiona and soppressata salumi, chopped kale, prosciutto butter, basil, and a finishing twig of thyme that is lit ablaze before the dish is served.
In addition to pastas prepped for on-site consumption, Bordo’s deli is also lined with packages of house-made strozzapretti, long ribbons of malfaldini, and lumanche twisted like snail shells—all available to take home. Most notably, there are bags of alfabeto, limited to the letters B, O, R, and D. “We only have a letterpress with those four letters,” Bailey laughs.
If you think you’re going to be able to roll yourself home after tackling a sandwich like the Morty Melt with pan-seared mortadella, tomato jam, pesto aioli, and a spiced bun—well, think again. Bordo also boasts a homemade gelato bar with distinct flavors like mulberry topped with fennel sprinkles and a neon blue take on Mountain Dew’s Baja Blast.
“We are so lucky to have them in town,” says award-winning pitmaster Mark Scott, who now runs a barbecue pop-up called Sawtooth Projects. A Marfa native since 1995 and the former proprietor of Convenience West, Scott has witnessed the turnover of ill-timed new businesses in his West Texas home for decades. But not with Serva and Bailey’s desert deli. “They take care of the community and their staff. Simply put: Life is better with Bordo.”
