South East Asia's Rising Stars

These restaurants are quickly stepping up as the region’s next hottest dining destinations

- Michelle Yee

Gaggan may have taken the crown again at the 2018 edition of Asia’s 50 Best awards ceremony, making it the fourth year running the Bangkok restaurant is at the top of the list. But the restaurant and chef that was at the centre of media attention was Toyo Eatery in Manila, helmed by chef-owner Jordy Navarra, who bagged the ‘Miele One To Watch Award’ for Asia.

Although barely two years old, the 50-seat establishment, tucked in a corner of Chino Roces Avenue in Makati, has quickly become one of Manila’s top favourite restaurants, serving refined Filipino dishes prepared with local ingredients and traditional cooking methods. For the longest time, Filipino food has been described as comfort fare that is best appreciated in people’s houses, cooked by a loving grandmother, but chef Navarra, who cut his teeth at top restaurants like Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, UK, and Alvin Leung’s three-starred Bo Innovation in Hong Kong, has showed that it could be that and more—that Filipino food, like French or Japanese cuisine, is capable of abstraction and complexity.

One of his signature dishes is pork barbecue, a popular street food that practically every Filipino has grown up with. At Toyo, he elevates the dish by using three cuts of pork (shoulder, belly and butt), layered together to play on flavours and textures before skewering and cooking the meat over charcoal and wood, finishing it in pork bone broth in a process that takes about 12 hours. The end result is refined and spectacular.

Now, with the award under his belt, chef Navarra is set to fly the flag for Filipino cuisine on the international stage.