Pass the Chimichurri.

Meet Churrascos' Michael Cordua, one of the pioneers of the Nuevo Latino culinary movement that is taking the U.S. by fork.

IN THE MID-1980s, MICHAEL CORDUA, A 26-year-old native of Nicaragua, was working for a shipping company in Houston when the bottom fell out of the oil industry. Cordua had always loved to cook, so he took his severance package and in 1988 started a restaurant called Churrascos in a dumpy neighborhood in Houston. Much as its name implies, it was like a traditional Argentine steakhouse, but with a contemporary flair.

Despite good reviews, including a crowd-bringing boost from Texas Monthly, the restaurant was losing money, and Cordua was ready to throw in his apron after only four months. But then fate intervened. The wife of a prominent banker in Houston, Fred Smith of First National Bank, happened to eat at his restaurant and encouraged her husband to try it. Smith was so impressed that after his meal he gave Cordua his card. "'If you're thinking of expanding, call me,'" Cordua remembers him saying.

Cash-strapped Cordua did and he's never looked back. He now has two Churrascos in Houston and a more elaborate eatery near the ritzy Galleria called Americas. He's planning to open another Churrascos in San Antonio sometime this fall and perhaps one in Phoenix after that. His plan is to eventually roll out the concept nationwide.

Cordua was one of the early pioneers of so-called "Nuevo Latino" cuisine, which is taking the U.S. by fork. Restaurants serving this Latin American-food-with-an-attitude are popping up all over the country, from New York (Orinoco, Sonora and Calle Ocho) to Chicago (Brio, Mas and Nacional) to the West Coast (Vinga in San Francisco and ??Oba! in Portland).

"It's a bonafide trend," says John F. Mariani, a noted restaurant critic at Esquire magazine and author of The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink: More Than 2,000 Definitions and Descriptions of American Classics (Lebhar-Friedman Books, November 1999). "Some of it has to do solely with the fact that the Hispanic population of the United States is increasing enormously. You've [also] got some real smart Latinos who are doing it."

Mariani says Nuevo Latino cuisine actually grew out of a movement started in Miami in the late 1980s called New Caribbean, or Floribbean, which featured meats and fish sunnied up with citrus and exotic Caribbean fruits like mangoes, passion fruit and guava and served with rice and beans. Its originators were mostly non-Latinos, including Mark Militello at Mark's Place, Norman Van Aken at Louie's Backyard and Robin Haas at The Colony.

iPasion! in Philadelphia. But like many trendy food styles, its popularity started to wane. So in the early 1990s, restaurateurs--many of whom were Latin American--started reaching farther south for recipes and ingredients.

One of them was Douglas Rodriguez. Part of the New Florida scene at Yuca in Miami, the first-generation Cuban-American eventually moved his show to New York City, opening the crowd-pleasing Patria in 1994. Popular restaurant guide Zagat Survey currently includes it as one of its top 50 restaurants in New York, calling it "estupendo." "Douglas Rodriguez whips up some of New York's most exciting' food," its review says. "'Every bite is an explosion' of flavors from dishes presented `with flair.'" Rodriguez even went on to write a cookbook called "Nuevo Latino: Recipes that Celebrate the New Latin American Cuisine" (Ten Speed Press, 1995). Esquire's Mariani says the most exciting chef on the scene right now is Guillermo Pernot, who recently opened iPasion! in Philadelphia. Pernot, who hails from Argentina, cut his teeth at Gloria Estefan's Allioli on Miami Beach and Vega Grill in Manayunk, Pennsylvania. His specialties include smoked chicken and corn quesadillas with tomatillo pico de gallo, tamal cubano with a watercress and scallion salad and barbecued pork with boniato pancakes. It's not cheap, either: Dinner can set you back $80 per person.

Despite many newcomers' entrance on the scene, many credit the 40-year-old Cordua with ushering this Latin American cuisine to the forefront, executing it flawlessly and with panache.

Cordua learned to appreciate Latin American cooking from his mother, whose specialties were simple dishes like arroz con pollo and gallo pinto, a variation on the traditional Nicaraguan meal of rice and beans. When he moved to College Station to attend Texas A&M University in 1976, the closest thing he could find to Latin American dining was Taco Bell. So he started cooking for his roommates and friends. His first dish was a flop: He tried to fry beans in oil to make refried beans. The only problem was that he hadn't boiled the beans first.

His first restaurant also looked like it was going to be a disaster. But after his encounter with First National Bank's Smith, Cordua invited him and his loan officer to the restaurant, where he made a presentation and served them some of his best dishes. After that, he snagged a $250,000 loan. Cordua used that money to open a second Churrascos closer to downtown. As with the first location, it took a while to catch on. But once word got out, the restaurant took off.

Then came his real taste of success. In July 1993, he opened Americas, a souped-up version of Churrascos with Indian-inspired decor on the inside ("looks like it was done by Picasso on drugs," one reviewer said) and daring food on the plate, such as taquitos filled with bacon-wrapped quail, mushrooms and chiles, giant shrimp sauteed with cachaca-laced butter, and, to top it off, dulce de arroz asturiano, a rice-pudding souffle in a carmelized coconut basket. Mariani was so impressed, he included it as the top new restaurant in the November issue of Esquire in 1993. After that, foodies flooded in.

Despite the acclaim Cordua has received, he's taken his lumps, too. A Churrascos he opened in Chicago in 1997 to rave reviews closed down after eight months when a local operating partner backed out. He lost something in the six figures. And a line of dips and plantains he developed for sale in supermarkets a few years ago has never really taken off.

But Cordua keeps creating new ideas and concepts. In November, he plans to take Nuevo Latino cuisine downscale a bit with a new Houston restaurant called the Amazon Grill. Diners will be able to feast on some of the same food they enjoy at Churrascos and Americas, but at more like $7 to $10 per entree. One of the highlights: Instead of a salad bar, it will feature a sauce bar with 18 different concoctions, from chimichurri, an olive oil-and-cilantro pesto, to a coconut milk sauce. "We want to bring Latin cuisine to the masses," he says.

What advice would Cordua give to other Latin Americans looking to open shop in the U.S.? Do not renounce your roots, he says. "We can learn from the American experience," he says. "But we have to find the beauty of our culture and share it with Americans," Cordua certainly has.