Don Baldosano’s fresh take on Filipino cuisine

When most people his age are still in school, 20something Don Patrick Baldosano has already been busy with Linamnam, where he hosts private dinners at his family’s home in Parañaque City, a suburb in the southern part of Metro Manila.

Before a metro-wide lockdown was imposed because of Covid-19, Baldosano would whip up a 16-course degustation menu practically every night for a very reasonable P1,700++ (USD33.50++) per person. “I wanted to introduce a tasting menu without the unnecessary fuss,” Baldosano says. “It’s a dining experience that’s not at all uptight, but very much relaxed.

When Linamnam officially reopens – hopefully soon – the chef will be offering a more streamlined 11-course tasting menu comprised of dishes that, he says, are more attuned to local cooking techniques.

Diners can expect his inventive take on kinilaw (ceviche) where he uses tuba (coconut wine) instead of vinegar to “cook” the fish meat. He also plays with tutong (scorched rice) by mixing it with pili nut and smearing it with mayonnaise mixed with pinakurat vinegar and topping it with dried shrimp and santan flower.

Growing up in a household that loves to cook, and being second cousin to influential restaurateur and cookbook author Myke “Tatung” Sarthou, Baldosano’s love affair with food started at 10, when he was inspired by celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain on television.

At age 12, he joined Junior MasterChef Pinoy Edition in 2010 and made it to the top 10. Born to a family of dentists and doctors, Baldosano gave medical school a chance and then dropped out after a year to take a hotel, restaurant and institution management course, and join more cooking competitions.

“But school just wasn’t for me. I would intern in different restaurants, come home from work at 3am, and then go to school at 7am,” he says. This routine was so exhausting, Baldosano decided to dedicate himself to an intensive five-month professional culinary course at Enderun Colleges. During that time, he staged at chef Jordy Navarra’s Toyo Eatery for half a year, and then worked with chef Mikel Zaguirre at the Fyre Rooftop Lounge for six months.

To immerse himself in every sector of the restaurant industry, Baldosano also set up a food stall in a weekend market, selling grains from different parts of the Philippines and presenting them in a variety of ways. Called Saing, it lasted two months. “I wanted to understand how everything worked so I got into fine dining (Toyo), casual dining (Fyre) and even a small-scale food business.”

In his spare time, Baldosano read tons of cookbooks and decoded modern cooking techniques. Sometimes, friends also helped him to be better at his craft. “They would come over and bring random ingredients, which I would convert into a five-course meal. Once, they brought a slab of pork belly and challenged me by asking how many dishes I could prepare with it.

That fueled my creativity,” he recalls. This prepared Baldosano for two of his biggest milestones to date: representing the country in the Young Talents Escoffier Asian finals in Hong Kong next year, after beating five other candidates in the Philippines, and opening Linamnam, his private dinners venture.

Though the menu changes multiple times in a week, the style and cuisine – his contemporary take on Filipino food – remain the same. Baldosano’s menu largely depends on what he finds in the market early in the day. To challenge his creativity in crafting a variety of dishes, he focuses on sourcing his ingredients from a single market each month.

For a young chef, who loves nothing more than to be kept on his toes creatively, his future looks bright and promising.

Angelo Comsti writes about food in “Tall Order“, his weekly column in Philippine Daily Inquirer.