Chef’s tribute to his roots is well worth the trip to Marikina
I first met 29-year-old chef Francis Lacson at the 2024 Doreen G. Fernandez Food Writing Awards in September, when he won second place writing about “Linagpang: A Grilled Soup,” a dish cooked up by his maternal grandfather when Lacson was growing up in Mambusao, Capiz. As if that wasn’t impressive enough—Lacson is an excellent writer, and is also into photography—he prepared the tasty, smoky subject of his essay for guests at the awarding ceremony to sample, which, in my opinion, was the runaway favorite at the afternoon tasting. Who wouldn’t be impressed?
Now, Lacson is again tickling taste buds, paying delicious tribute to his roots with an eight-course degustacion, combining the bounty of the seas surrounding his home province—scallops, prawns, fish, and the famous oysters—with Filipino ingredients as well as unexpected twists, from kamias and yuzu to pistachio nuts and palabok roux, for an experience that even those skeptical of degustacion offerings should sample.
More interesting, this is not in tony Makati or posh BGC, but in a former two-story sari-sari store in Marikina that has been turned into a small, exclusive dining spot that seats 12 people max by reservation.
Leo Sea House is a labor of love for owner Marie Dumol, Lacson’s high school classmate from the neighboring town of Panitan, Capiz, whose main business is selling seafood online, with her family back home tapping local fisher folk as suppliers. The complement of four in-house chefs assisting Lacson prepares the food in the cozy space right behind a counter; upstairs, there’s seating for six more.
Dumol is a surfing fanatic who frequents Bali and Siargao, and recalls a wonderful dining experience at a restaurant called Yuki in Bali, which
fueled her desire to open her own place.
“I cook,” Dumol says, “but I can’t do chef things,” she adds with a laugh. Thus, Leo Sea House is where Dumol’s own food ideas find elevated fruition, thanks to her classmate and kababayan.
Reading and research
Dumol and Lacson managed to keep in touch after college. Lacson actually studied to become a seafarer, which he was for a few years—until the vessel he was on was hijacked by pirates in Colombia, which made him realize that maybe he was meant to do something else, he says with a laugh. He never went to culinary school, instead researching and reading voraciously (hence the way with words), apprenticing with chefs in Manila, opening Crypto Café in Iloilo, and working his way up to consultancies and stints with restaurants.
Until July, Lacson and Dumol are paying tribute to the flavors of their youth with this extraordinary offering. “It’s the geographical placement of the island, I guess,” says Lacson. “We’re facing the Sibuyan Sea, and there’s really a different taste in the brackish waters of Capiz.”
The fish from places like Palawan or Siargao are big and salty, adds Dumol. “But in Capiz, the tangigue, for example, is whitish and sweet. The flavors are really different, which is why we’re trying to promote them. Capiz is also known as the seafood capital of the Philippines.”
The oysters are smaller than those from neighboring Aklan, but both swear they’re tastier and need no other condiments.
The menu whimsically states that it is “a love letter to our childhood days on the beaches and in the fields of Capiz, where every day brought a fresh catch and abundant produce.”
Dumol’s cousin Jong Samontina, who plays maitre’d for guests, provided the annotation for the meal. Not on the menu, but a nice welcome, was Thai tea with calamansi juice and syrup, and a small oyster sisig ball topped with a taro chip and sitting on some calamansi marmalade—talk about a compact bite of oyster goodness!
I thought the Scallop Siomai was going to be my favorite (although it was apparently too early to say), tasty Capiz scallops and tenga ng daga mushroom topped with ginger hay and, fancy this, with a dehydrated singkamas wrap. The killer was the dip you poured on the scallop from a crab shell, made of cheese pimiento, toyomansi, and the in-house chili-garlic sauce. The result was an explosion of flavors—salty, savory, but with that ocean taste still underlying it all.
Sweet starter
Lacson threw in a sweet starter, the restaurant’s homemade monay bun, served hot with a latik butter made of milk and coconut water with coffee honey. The bread was delicious in itself, but that sweet kick just coated your mouth, preparing it for the next savory dish. This was a bowl of Gotong Dagat, with fresh, chewy little chunks of fish cheeks, clams, and mussels crowding the bottom of the bowl, topped with a calamansi foam that added a citrus element to the soup.
Paklay was a refreshing salad of sautéed shrimp and squid bits, ubod, seaweed, and kamias, topped with crispy vermicelli and roasted peanuts for added crunch. Then came the delicious Lukon, a smoky, flavorful tiger prawn grilled with miso butter, carrots, and snow peas, wrapped in some freshly made handkerchief pasta and slathered in palabok sauce, which worked very well to wrap up the flavors.
I loved them all, but my other favorite was the Fish Humba, a chunk of tangigue cooked sous vide in the familiar humba sauce with black beans (tausi)—“sweeter than adobo,” Samontina notes—topped with a clean-tasting, delicate cilantro cucumber salad, and eaten with a bowl of coconut turmeric rice. “Kanin pa rin, very Pinoy,” Lacson adds, and it was just the most comforting dish, with familiar tastes combined in a new way.
And since this was a fancy degustacion, a nata coconut sherbet came my way next, with surprise bits of nata de coco—which I don’t usually like, but went very well with the sherbet—amped up with hints of yuzu and curry leaves. Curry in sherbet? Yes, it worked.
Finally, for this sweet tooth, a great ending: inday-inday, Filipino rice cake made from poached, glutinous rice flour, akin to palitaw. Lacson made his version with ube, so it looked like a bunch of blueberries surrounding a piece of coconut cake with bokayo (sweetened coconut strips). Topping it all was a scoop of palitaw ice cream with pistachio bits and a flake of pecorino cheese.
Therein, I believe, lies Francis Lacson’s talent: identifying a theme, stitching together unexpected flavors—again, curry in sherbet?—while going on forays beyond the expected. He’s always looking for the “soul” in the food, Lacson says. “But being rooted in your food really tells a story.”
This is one story every seafood-loving foodie should not miss.
Leo Sea House is at 339 E. dela Paz St, Marikina. Open for dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m. Seatings at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Street parking is available at night. For inquiries and reservations, message them on Facebook @Leo Sea House and on Instagram @Leo Sea House.
