Anthony Bourdain called Filipino food the ‘next best thing’ – now Hong Kong agrees. Young chefs and entrepreneurs in the city are redefining the cuisine
- Filipino food and the chefs making it have been gaining traction around the world, and the cuisine is now showing up on world’s-best lists
- Hong Kong has been slow to catch on, but is starting to do so – from the setting up of online Filipino-food delivery services to the opening of new restaurants
Ask any Hongkonger what their favourite cuisine is and Filipino food will rarely top the list, although many have had a taste of it, thanks in large part to the cooking of their foreign domestic workers.
Meanwhile, Filipino food and talent have been gaining traction around the world – last year, Kasama, in the US city of Chicago, became the first Michelin-star restaurant serving Filipino food.
Orlando, in Florida, boasts rising Filipino stars cooking Japanese cuisine, such as chef Michael Collantes, of Soseki Modern Omakase, and Jennifer Bañagale and Mark Berdin, fronting the one-Michelin-star Kadence.
Filipino food has a lot of influences from around the world, which includes Hong Kong
Despite Hong Kong’s huge Filipino population and the large number of Filipinos working in the food and beverage industry, the city has been slow to catch on to the trend.