Mornings in Sagada
Mornings at Log Cabin Sagada come alive with the cool mountain air, the scent of pine trees, freshly brewed coffee, and bread baking in the oven. Except during mushroom season, when everyone is up long before sunrise. By 4 a.m., Alyssa and Armiro “Miro” Gulian, along with their family and staff, are already preparing to head into the mountains to forage for wild mushrooms.
They return around lunchtime, their baskets full of the forest’s bounty. Then the real work begins.
The mushrooms are cleaned and sorted. Some are dried, others pickled or preserved in brandy. The rest become mushroom XO, duxelles, and seasonings. And depending on the season, farmers arrive in jeepneys loaded with freshly harvested tomatoes, cabbages, fruits, and vegetables.
Whatever the time of year, Alyssa and Miro find something delicious to do with it all. “It’s a lot of work,” she laughs. “Sometimes I wonder how we manage to squeeze everything into one day!”
But she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Building a life in the mountains
Alyssa wasn’t born in Sagada. She was living in Manila when she started visiting in 2014. She met Miro a year later, and they fell in love. In 2017, she left the city to build a life with him in the mountains. What began as a place she loved visiting eventually became home.
For all the work that goes into running Log Cabin, Alyssa says theirs is actually a simple life. She loves taking walks, going on picnics with Miro and their daughter, Gianna, and spending time together at home. “There’s something about living in Sagada that makes you realize you don’t really need much to be happy,” she reflects.
And listening to her talk about life in the mountains, one can understand why.
The family legacy
Log Cabin Sagada has been around since 1991. It was founded by Miro’s parents, Dave and Janice Gulian. Inspired by their travels through the Swiss Alps, they brought together their love for European cooking and traditional Igorot food.
What began as a little restaurant in their family home became one of Sagada’s beloved dining destinations—known especially for its Saturday evening buffets.
In 2017, the younger generation took over. Miro brought his passion for smoking, curing, and cooking over fire. Alyssa, who had previously run her own food business in Manila, found her place exploring Sagada’s ingredients and developing new products.
Then came the pandemic. Almost overnight, Sagada closed to tourists. So did Log Cabin. For a family whose livelihood depended on visitors, it was frightening. But what worried the couple even more was their staff. “We couldn’t imagine simply letting everyone go,” Alyssa recalls.
So they turned to something they already knew how to do: making good food. The smoked meats they had been preparing for years became products they could sell beyond the mountains. It gave their family and employees another source of livelihood.
What began as a way to survive eventually gave Log Cabin a whole new life.
Made from what the mountains provide
Today, Log Cabin is much more than a restaurant. It has become a kitchen of discovery, where old traditions are kept alive, and new ideas are constantly taking shape.
I can only imagine how much fun Alyssa has at work. She oversees much of Log Cabin’s research and development. One day, she’s preserving wild mushrooms—the next she’s making sauerkraut, bottling jams, or experimenting with honey to make mead.
There are also fruit preserves, syrups, pickles, flavored salts, hot sauces, and all sorts of edible creations made from what the mountains provide. And somewhere in between, she and Miro still have a restaurant to run, guests to look after, and a little girl to raise.
The success of Log Cabin’s growing food line is not theirs alone. Over the years, they have built close relationships with farmers and producers in and around Sagada. Their honey comes from a farmer friend in Bangguitan, Besao, who harvests only once a year. Another farmer grows yellow habaneros especially for them.
When mushroom season arrives, everyone joins the hunt. Among their most treasured finds is sedesdem, a wild mushroom from the Cordillera. It has a deep, earthy flavor, even more pronounced than that of Italian porcini.
They preserve it in different ways, even turning it into a finishing salt. These farmers have become more than suppliers. They have become friends. “We know who grows our vegetables, who harvests our honey, and who brings us the fruits we use in our kitchen,” Alyssa shares.
“When we create something from their produce, it feels like we’re sharing their story, too.”
Family recipes translated into restaurant favorites
The restaurant is, in many ways, a showcase of everything the couple preserves, pickles, cures, smokes, and bakes in their kitchen.
The menu specialties include pork tenderloin in brandy sauce—an original recipe of Miro’s mother, Janice, that remains on the menu today. A crowd favorite is the shredded chicken in wild mushroom cream sauce, served with potato chips, and their sedesdem pasta and pizza.
Miro, meanwhile, has a passion for smoking, curing, and cooking meats over fire. His specialties include bacon etag, Iberico bacon, pastrami, and lomo embuchado, among others.
They have quite a collection of handcrafted cured and smoked meats. Many of these also find their way into the restaurant’s dishes.
And then, there’s the Sagada Forest Ham
Long before the Sagada Forest Ham became something people could order for Christmas, it was simply the ham the Gulian family made for their own celebrations—birthdays, holidays, and special occasions. It was the kind of food that appeared on the family table, year after year.
During the pandemic, it became one of the products that helped keep the business going. Today, it is a much-awaited Christmas offering. Only 2,000 pieces are produced each year.
Inspired by the original family recipe, Alyssa and Miro developed the version they make today. Each ham is cured and smoked in small batches using alderwood, traditionally used in the Cordillera to smoke and preserve meats such as etag. The wood gives the ham its gentle, distinctive smoky flavor. It also connects it to the food traditions of the mountains.
There is something especially appealing about a Christmas ham made this way. The kind that is not mass-produced but patiently prepared in a small mountain kitchen, from a family tradition lovingly passed on to the next generation.
