The recent Celera and logy collaboration was years in the making
It’s not the first time chefs Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar have worked with Ryogo Tahara of the celebrated Taiwan-based restaurant logy. They’ve actually collaborated on a dinner in Taipei before the pandemic.
Santos recalls, “Hey Handsome just closed. That was March 2019. We went to Taiwan to cook with him a few months after we closed. During that time, we still had plans of reopening Handsome (hence why they carried the brand). A year after was when we decided not to open anymore.”
The years and milestones in between
The idea had always been for them to work in each other’s professional kitchens. However, fate postponed Ryogo’s Manila trip due to the COVID outbreak. To say the least, their recent meet-up was years in the making. And a lot of things have happened in between.
Since then, logy restaurant was awarded its first star—just five months after its opening. It went on to receive two Michelin stars a year after. Santos and Vilar, on the other hand, launched Aurora in February 2023. They eventually cut ties with the brand in August last year. And in 2025, they introduced Celera, a refined casual dining restaurant that features contemporary Asian cuisine.
In a way, both their paths ended up going in the same direction, consequently leading to a more intact and seamless collaboration. “I have always wanted to come to Manila and work with him,” says Ryogo. “This time it’s for his new restaurant, which is more fine dining style. The timing was very good.”
For the Manila-based tandem, their reunion caused some anxiety. “Nakaka-pressure and a lot of excitement at the same time,” says Nicco. “Quenee and I really prepared in advance for this. We got the menu from them a month and a half ago. From that menu, we tried to build the dishes to work with their style just for this collaboration. We went all the way to having new uniforms made just for that night. If anything, it was really an honor, and I feel super grateful that someone with Ryogo’s talent cooked with us in Celera.”
The best of both worlds
The multi-course meal started with a medley of one-biters: a squid ink florette, sea urchin candle, lobster tartlet, and a foie gras-pineapple sandwich. It was followed by a delicate appetizer that married crab meat, caviar, mangoes, and a shaoxing wine jelly—all nestled in a paper-thin cracker. There was a small mound of smoked quail bone noodles smothered in walnut sauce, as well as a coco pan with butter for the bread course.
Next came my favorite dish of the night: amadai fish poached in coconut milk, seasoned with herbs and katsuobushi. The flavor was as delicate and immaculate as it looked, and the fish gave way to the smallest amount of pressure. The meat was as buttery as the velvety sauce.
More dishes lent savory satisfaction and they came in the form of a smoked quail bone broth with fermented mushroom leaves, pigeon with beetroot curry, lamb with mala pork jus, and Ryogo’s signature Hokkaido rice cooked in Taiwanese tea.
For dessert, two numbers genuinely piqued my curiosity: one mixed amazake, borracho goat cheese, and white chocolate, while the other was a black mussel dark chocolate nugget. Of the sweet lot, it was the white peach with IPA beer and oriental beauty tea that stole the show.
Things do happen for a reason. In Celera and logy’s case, there is a reasonable motive why it took six years for them to fulfill the promise of collaborating in Manila. Fate, time, and experience wanted them to be more comfortable in their mature roles as chefs before meeting up again and producing a higher caliber of cooking.
And the meal I just had validated this.
