“Being able to amplify and showcase stories about Filipino-American culture, the communities here, specifically in the Northwest, and the immigrant story that my parents came with … I was just very humbled to be able to showcase what the sacrifice was and be able to represent the region in that way,” he says.
Aaron Verzosa, up for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific at this year’s James Beard Awards, at his Filipino restaurant Archipelago, in Seattle. Photo: AP

Abacá, in San Francisco, and Kasama, in Chicago, are the other Filipino restaurants nominated, with the former scoring a nod for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker for Vince Bugtong, and the latter a joint nomination for Best Chef: Great Lakes for husband and wife Tim Flores and Genie Kwon.

In 2022, Kasama was nominated for Best New Restaurant at the awards, and also became the world’s first Michelin-star Filipino restaurant.

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Past Filipino-American winners of James Beard Awards include Tom Cunanan, who in 2019 snagged Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic for his work at Bad Saint, in Washington, which has since closed.

All this recognition is welcome praise for a cuisine that has historically been stifled by colonialism and a general lack of appreciation. These chefs are part of a younger generation giving voice to the Filipino-American experience through the language of food.

Bugtong says that before joining Abacá in January, he was having an identity crisis.

Vince Bugtong has been nominated for this year’s James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker award. Photo: AP
He previously worked as a pastry chef for a cocktail bar in Oakland, California, and wanted to make more Filipino-centric desserts, but at the same time felt he lacked authenticity.

He says that at Abacá, chef and owner Francis Ang has given him the freedom to explore his culinary roots. He has since experimented with dishes from the Philippines’ pre-Spanish days, like rice-based desserts, or kakanin in Tagalog.

“In the small amount of time that I’ve worked here, I definitely learned so much,” Bugtong says.

A crème brûlée tart at Abacá made of lemon cinnamon custard, strawberry guava jam, macadamia coconut streusel and ube espuma – a purple yam foam. Photo: AP

He enjoys playing around with ingredients from the Philippines, and wants to make a granita – a semi-frozen dessert – with barako coffee, which is grown in the country, and pair it with muscovado jelly and leche flan ice cream. Leche flan is the Filipino version of creme caramel.

“My thought process when I come up with stuff is, ‘Do I like it? Does it represent me as a Filipino American?’ Then the second thing that I think about is, ‘Is this approachable to other people? Filipino or otherwise?’ And then I think of a composition that makes it aesthetically beautiful,” he says.

Bugtong prepares yema cakes – salted egg cakes with almond yogurt and salted egg yolk custard – at Abacá. Photo: AP

In Seattle, Archipelago – named so because the Philippines comprises 7,100 islands – has been serving a seasonal tasting menu since 2018. Verzosa and his wife, Amber Manuguid, wanted to create a “Pacific northwest restaurant first and foremost”. But there’s a “Filipino American-ness” intrinsic to the meals, too.

For instance, Verzosa might swap out tamarind for wild lingonberries, which are native to the US and grow in cooler places like the country’s Pacific northwest. He gives his own take on Filipino banana ketchup, with sweeter tubers or root vegetables.

Because there are only 12 seats in the restaurant, Verzosa is able to chat with every guest.

Over the last five, 10 years or so, they’re finally coming through and developing their own voice
Aaron Verzosa on the emergence of Filipino chefs

“When we have Filipinos coming from the Philippines and we have Filipinos that are here from the US – whether they be first, second, all the way to fifth generation – there’s a really beautiful way to connect with them differently,” he says.

“I think the most important thing to realise is that there is no one way to be Filipino.”

Neither Verzosa nor Bugtong seriously considered a culinary career until after they graduated from university.

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Verzosa, who originally planned to go to medical school before cutting his teeth in the restaurant industry, grew up watching cooking shows on American TV channels PBS and the Food Network, and also observed the cooking of his father, aunts and uncles.

“I would come home from school, be eating my dad’s food and watching these shows,” Verzosa says.

“At some point, he was like, ‘Hey, listen, Aaron, if you love eating as much as you do, you need to learn how to love to cook.’”

A fiddlehead and a morel being prepared for Archipelago’s version of pinakbet, a dish from the northern part of the Philippines. Photo: AP

Bugtong dropped plans to become a teacher and in 2014 enrolled in a culinary school in the Bay Area in California. As a child, he hadn’t demonstrated any passion for making things from scratch.

“I did stuff with Betty Crocker [an American cake mix package brand] and thought I was bad**s [by] substituting milk instead of water,” Bugtong says, chuckling.

“When I was a kid, I used to put egg wash on Chips Ahoy! [cookies] and bake them. They came out very gooey inside and crispy on the outside.”

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Filipino cuisine’s staples include steamed rice, meat and fish imbued with sweet, salty and sour notes. Dishes like adobo (a meat braised in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic), lumpia (spring rolls) and pancit (fried noodles) are already part of the zeitgeist.While Filipinos have been hearing on and off for the last decade that their food is about to be the next big thing, Filipino places make up only 1 per cent of restaurants in the US that serve Asian food, according to an analysis released earlier this month by think tank Pew Research Centre.There’s no one explanation why other Asian cuisines like Chinese have been able to grab a bigger foothold in the restaurant industry.
Verzosa pours a wild nettle laing sauce to complete his version of pinakbet, at Archipelago. Photo: AP

But one reason is the “funnelling” of early Filipino immigrants into particular occupations, according to Martin Manalansan, an American Studies professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

In the 1920s and ’30s, he says, they came to the US for agricultural work. After 1965, they worked mostly in more technical fields like nursing and engineering.

Many young Filipino Americans were discouraged from becoming chefs “because that was seen as very lowly, especially if your parents are nurses, doctors, engineers, whatever,” Manalansan says.

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In addition, Filipino food was often dismissed as a fusion of Chinese, Spanish and a dash of American. That perception annoys Manalansan because it doesn’t recognise the creativity of Filipino culture.

“The late ’90s foodie revolution was really about being adventurous and being called a ‘foodie’, being into more ‘exotic’, interesting cuisine. Filipino cuisine was seen as kind of homey, kind of blasé,” he says.

Whether or not the recognition for Filipino chefs at this year’s James Beard Awards proves to be a one-off, Verzosa says it feels like there are more Filipino chefs on the rise than ever.

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“Over the last five, 10 years or so, they’re finally coming through and developing their own voice, and wanting to showcase their own families, their own communities, their own regions,” Verzosa says.

“Having the craft and ability to make delicious food – obviously that needs to happen to tell those stories.”