The chefs making uncomplicated food taste even better
For these restaurants, there is hardly any spectacle. The strategy is fuss-free and no-frills food. And that’s a good thing in a market that seems to be reaching a saturation point with fine dining concepts. Of course, that’s not to dismiss the chefs transforming tasting menus into high-impact celebrations of produce and process.
But more often than not, customers, no matter how refined their palate, just want something casual and relaxed.
At these restaurants, craveability is the name of the game. Two of them portray comfort food without boundaries or limits and reshape it into various forms. Another grabs headlines for her first solo brick-and-mortar.
Their common thread? Uncomplicated food isn’t one-size-fits-all.
Rhea SyCip gets the solo restaurant dream she deserves
Rhea SyCip is anything but an overnight success story. Having been in the foodservice, hospitality, and academic industry for nearly two decades, SyCip’s journey to opening Flour Pot Bistro and Bakery in BGC is akin to cultivating the flowers that decorate her unmistakable bouquet-like cakes.
From working as a corporate chef for Dome Cafe Philippines at 23 years old to opening a farm-to-table restaurant, The Fatted Calf, in Tagaytay with husband and chef Jayjay SyCip, her road to success with a standalone restaurant was slow, arduous, and challenging.
“I started young in my career, and I never had the opportunity to bring out my own food,” she says. “I do, of course, as a chef, but as I grew older, I also matured in terms of the food I wanted. That dream never left me. It took 20 years for this [to materialize].”
And to do so in the most competitive market for F&B businesses feels like a full-circle moment for her neighborhood-friendly bistro’s step toward a potentially bright future.
“For Flour Pot, when the demand started to grow, and there’s a clamor for cakes being delivered every day here, that’s the time we said maybe it’s time to go back to Manila.”
But launching Flour Pot was not without challenges. Opening was delayed by a year and a half. “Usual delays in construction,” she says, coupled with scrambling for the Christmas season and not having any place to train.
Yet the cold, hard truth of opening a restaurant didn’t faze SyCip. And it shows in the exuberant aesthetic of Flour Pot. On one side, a feature wall is embroidered with rolling pins while gigantic whisks hang as lamps. Anchoring the core of the space is the main counter and chillers displaying her signature cakes and pastries.
The sights, sounds, and smells of the menu may also positively overwhelm customers. It’s divided into a bakery and savory kitchen; each section offering a solid introduction to SyCip’s arsenal, as well as salient reminders of her ability to craft memorable dishes founded on her long-held belief that “food should be intentional, heartfelt, and connected to the people and places that inspire it.”
SyCip’s menu draws comparisons to some of the finest restaurants in Manila, largely due to her commitment to working with and sourcing directly from small-scale producers, farmers, and suppliers. She prioritizes local, seasonal, and responsibly grown ingredients—in-season berries from Benguet and Pekin duck from Tarlac’s EDL Farm form the foundation of the duck salad; river prawns sourced through fisherfolk and aquaculturists from Mindanao strengthen the lively yet light umami profile of the miso butter and ikura spaghetti.
There’s also kiniing from Mountain Province paired with Manila clams, as well as a fresh pomodoro and basil pasta that uses canned Cagayan Valley tomatoes from Tosen, a food manufacturing company focused on working with farmers and optimizing preservation methods to address excess tomato supply, among others.
“Our food tells the stories of the farmers who grow it. Supporting them by sourcing locally is one of the most meaningful parts of what we do,” says SyCip.
In many ways, Flour Pot is both a reconnection with the chef that Rhea SyCip has always been and wanted to be, while offering the perfect introduction to customers who may only be discovering not just her artisanal cakes but also her still-blooming career.
Borderless B.Boi meets limitless Mugen Ramenya—for a limited time only
For Raul Forés, borderless comfort is his currency, and he continues to grow this food philosophy through B.Boi, a small slice in his multi-brand lifestyle universe called Big Body of Ideas.
And while he is still awaiting his first physical store, the temporary universe Forés has created so far at Mamou Meats Uptown in BGC, as well as at the previous collaborations with Made Nice, Bombvinos Bodega, and Taqueria Franco, makes it easy to see why he is one chef many people are eagerly awaiting to finally open a brick-and-mortar.
For now, his latest collaboration with Jorge Mendez at Mugen Ramenya in Maginhawa doubles down on his idea of borderless comfort food, coupled with Mendez’s focus on quality execution. The two chefs showcase four intentionally simple but snappy dishes available from May 7 to 30.
The gyu-kai batwan ramen is the natural star of the menu. Ramen is a product that everyone pretty much eats, and putting both their heads together yielded a thumping bowl of chewy noodles submerged in a beautiful synthesis of Mendez’s rich tsukemen-like base and Forés’ kansi beef broth and batwan foam for a slurp that is the culinary equivalent of a hedonistic climax.
“The ramen was a combination of ideas from us,” says Forés. There’s also langka just beneath the surface instead of bamboo shoots to play off the kansi reference, and on top are studs of seared short rib that may make the P980 price tag worth the repeat visits.
A squid ink chahan, despite its petite vessel, is another climactic savory course topped with nori shoyu, crab meat, and B.Boi-style ikura (whether in seven or 15 grams). “It’s a really nice coming together of components that we use in our respective concepts,” says Forés.
The mango sorbet with chocolate mochi dessert, and iced tea and lemonade drink—made even better by its “Raul Mendez” nickname—are simple and fun, and meant to complement the entire meal rather than act like star items on their own.
The lesson Forés and Mendez are imparting in their limited-time collaboration is plain and simple: A tight menu with unique, uncomplicated food that is done well and consistently more often than not signals good quality products.
And that’s certainly the case here.
