In Iloilo, young restaurant owners break with tradition while coping with Covid-19

The Philippines is a food-obsessed country with hundreds of regional dishes, and it’s no small matter that Ilonggo cuisine has yielded some of the its most beloved and iconic snacks. Foodies have the bounty and culture of the Western Visayas to thank for delights such as batchoy, pancit molo and KBL (kadyos, baboy and langka).

Not surprisingly, an Ilonggo cuisine haven like Iloilo City takes its native food very seriously. The food scene is dominated by decades-old eateries serving unpretentious, heritage recipes in laid-back, convivial atmospheres and at affordable price points.

“We constantly think about food and believe that eating must be a fiesta,” explains chef Rafael Jardeleza, a passionate ambassador for the port city’s delicacies and former owner of now-defunct Rafael’s La Cocina del Sur, a restaurant that specialized in Spanish-influenced Ilonggo cuisine.

Jardeleza has a caveat, however. Ilonggos prefer that their cuisine remain traditional, simple and unpretentious. So when a new restaurant attempting to do something different opens, the owner should pray to the gods that it is a hit, while preparing himself for a miss.

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TAKE FOR EXAMPLE THE CASE OF Breakthrough, Iloilo’s most iconic seafood restaurant. When marine biologist Raymundo Robles and his wife, Isabel, first opened it in 1987, they were the first to display live fish in massive cement tanks for customers to pick and have cooked.

They were also the first to introduce managat, red snapper with a soft and fatty flesh, to the city. “It used to be just a pest that ate milkfish fingerlings in fishponds,” says Mia Robles Ng, the couple’s daughter and Breakthrough’s operations manager, who refers to Breakthrough as her twin sibling because she was born in the same year the restaurant opened.

Customers will try something new if it is offered, but when they return, they go back to their regular orders

At Breakthrough, the service is casual and often unhurried. Before Covid-19, the restaurant would be filled with boisterous diners and the clink of flatware against plates can be heard everywhere, much like in a Chinese restaurant.

But from March 17 to the first week of May this year, Breakthrough had to temporarily close  due to a government-imposed lockdown. On May 8, it reopened for take out and delivery. “
It was actually our first time to do deliveries. On Mother’s Day. we were a disaster. We were overwhelmed with orders on a skeleton workforce. Our wait staff became deliver riders,” Mia recalls.

On June 16, Breakthrough finally welcomed back its regular dine-in patrons. “We removed some of the tables to make way for physical distancing. Our place is quite spacious, we still have lots of tables, but still less patrons coming to dine in,” Mia says.

Hopefully the situation improves now that residents of Panay can now travel unrestricted around the island – which includes Iloilo, Kalibo and Roxas cities – and to and from neighboring Guimaras island.

The food served at Breakthrough is traditional and reliable. The evergreen favorites on the menu include fried rice laden with crab fat and crabmeat; the fatty grilled managat brushed with garlicky orange annatto oil; the plump oysters; and the hard-to-find diwal, or angel wing clams – all firmly within the Ilonggo diner’s comfort zone.

But when Breakthrough introduces new dishes to the menu “to keep up with the times” the results are mixed at best. One of the new dishes that Mia conceptualized is a refreshing tuna and abalone sashimi, served with tiny cubes of soy sauce and ginger jellies, and strands of lato, a seaweed abundant in the Philippines that looks like miniscule grapes. But it has never picked up.

“Customers will try something new if it is offered, but when they return, they go back to their regular orders,” she sighs.

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DoVa’s operations were lightly interrupted at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic but guests have been able to dine-in since June

AT MEGAWORLD BUSINESS PARK, a 180-acre mixed-use community constructed on the former site of Iloilo’s airport, young restaurateur Miguel Cordova has been running the 654-seater DoVa Brunch Café since 2016. He relocated here from Javellana Street in Lapaz district to take advantage of the then-upcoming business district and a newly built eight-lane highway called Diversion Road.

DoVa was the first in the city to introduce the brunch concept. And while other restaurants throughout the area have also started offering brunch, DoVa still leads the game.

Brunch is Miguel’s favorite meal, and he does it with a passion. Describing DoVa’s menu, which serves mostly American comfort food, he says, “I only serve happy food.” Moreover, Miguel knows better than to compete in the already crowded market for traditional Ilonggo cuisine.

DoVa’s most popular dish is the Pulled Pork Benedict, Miguel’s take on the common star of the brunch table, which incorporates shredded pork instead of ham and marries the sweet and spicy flavors of American-style barbecue with the buttery tang of hollandaise sauce.

There’s also Grandma’s Meatloaf, which packs a punch of flavors under its blanket of rich tomato sauce and is the sort of food you can eat one-handed, with your eyes half-closed, while nursing a hangover.

The restaurant’s operations were lightly interrupted at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic; DoVa was limited to take out and delivery starting March this year, but guests have been able to dine-in since June.

And yet Covid-19 has not stopped Miguel from opening another restaurant last March. Located in Dumangas, a town half an hour’s drive away from Iloilo City, Costa Buena occupies 97 acres and can seat up to 400 people. There Miguel serves Filipino-Spanish dishes that he grew up eating.

As for tourism in Iloilo, Miguel says: “I am optimistic that the situation will be better. We have established protocols that will encourage more people to dine out. Everyone’s safety is our priority.”

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People come for what reminds them of their childhood and are surprised when we add a twist

ANOTHER MOULD BREAKER NEAR ILOILO BUSINESS PARK is Bakery by Louis, a modern and glamorous take on the nondescript neighborhood panaderias that Ilonggos have grown up with.

Its selection of breads ranges from crusty French baguettes to Italian panini, alongside sandwiches, calzones and round loaves stuffed with stringy mozzarella and topped with crusty, melted cheese. The smell of freshly baked bread inside the tiny space could entice anyone to abandon the pretense of a carb-free diet.

Siblings Gelo and Maiza Uygongco, both in their 20s, also come from an old food business family. Their mother, Maridel, owns an eponymous bakery that is believed to make the best cakes in the city.

But that hasn’t stopped them from quitting their corporate jobs in Manila to start something new and unusual in Iloilo City. At Bakery by Louis, Gelo is in charge of baking, while Maiza crunches the numbers.

“We stand out because our breads are a cross between classic flavors and new tastes. People come for what reminds them of their childhood and are surprised when we add a twist,” Gelo says.

One of their bestsellers is the Teren Teren, traditional round dinner rolls that are attached together to resemble train cars. “Ours are filled with corned beef. I don’t think anyone else has that here,” he adds.

The shop has also introduced bread concepts never before seen in Iloilo, such as baked pork buns popular in Chinese bakeries in Hong Kong. Bakery by Louis’ version is stuffed with shredded duck estofado, a traditional, savory-sweet Ilonggo duck stew.

Gelo and Maiza originally wanted a to-go place, similar to bakeries found in Italy and France, meant for people who want a quick bite. “But I think Ilonggos aren’t ready for the concept of walking and eating at the same time. They asked for a dining area, and Wifi, which we didn’t have then,” Gelo recalls, adding that they eventually relented and added tables and chairs – though they’ve had to temporarily close the area since March because of Covid-19.

But loyal customers are still buying their breads for take out – and Gelo has used the time to re-think the bakery’s offerings. “We introduced some new items such as our salted egg monggo babka loaf, and stollen (the German bread version of a fruit cake) in preparation for the holidays. We have also re-introduced old products such as our pizza bread and pork flosses,” Gelo says.

The Uygongco siblings say that competition has intensified as other bakeries with artisanal concepts have opened – an indication that Iloilo City’s food scene is stepping out of the past.

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When creating Seventy N Coffee + Drinkery young Karl Jardeleza drew inspiration from the bars and cafés where he worked while living in Melbourne

IN THE MEANTIME, ESTABLISHMENTS THAT STRADDLE new concepts and old habits might be the way to go. Seventy N Coffee + Drinkery seemed to have struck the right balance when it first opened in a quiet area where residential houses and commercial buildings stand alongside each other back in March 2017.

“But because the original building was deteriorating, we felt that we couldn’t compete with the newer restaurants in the city in terms of parking and ambiance,” says Karl Jardeleza, who had drawn inspiration from the bars and cafés where he worked while living in Melbourne.

“On February 28 this year we closed the old location. We were planning a surprise opening at our new location last March 18 – but sadly that was the day the local government announced the community lockdown,” Karl says.

Now occupying a prime spot on the lower ground floor of the shiny and brand new Greenfield commercial complex along Diversion Road, the new Seventy N finally opened its doors on June 3. It is doing surprisingly well, perhaps because people have been cooped up too long inside their homes and are now only too happy to be transported to a new and unfamiliar place.

Unlike in the old location where mostly beer was served, the new Seventy N has a wine wall and a full bar that churns out inventive cocktails using only expensive spirits. The food menu has also been upgraded: Wagyu burgers, racks of New Zealand grass-fed lamb, caviar and foie gras are among the new offerings. The interior design is sleek, and a giant mural showcasing local artists adorn one of its walls. There is also a bigger parking space for its well-heeled guests.

Young and determined to succeed in an industry where the norm is to stick to a single concept, he prefers to be flexible about his establishment’s identity by offering something for everyone. “I looked at my life and what I like,” says Karl, who admits that he has always liked drinking and partying, “and then I looked at it from the point of view of my consumers.”

Seventy N’s straightforward and consistently tasty food, even at its previous location, attracts both the city’s politicians, pretty young things and old families. Its masculine interior design has garnered many an Instagram post.

But the secret ingredient to the place’s success might just be native son Karl himself. Ever the host, he works the room like a pro, constantly standing up to greet people he knows – and there are a lot of them. In a small city like Iloilo, where everyone knows each other, it’s not necessarily the kind of food you serve, but the relationships you maintain that determine your success.