JORDY NAVARRA
Food & Cuisine
When asked about the degustation menu in Toyo Eatery, a colleague replied that it was “wild.” It wasn’t wild in the usual sense—foie gras wasn’t topped on top of anything, nothing was drowned in melted cheese or doused with truffle-infused oil. No, Toyo Eatery is about Filipino food, relearned and re-experienced, a version of a song we know by heart, one infused by our own memories and Chef Jordy Navarra’s very specific point-of-view. “It’s hard to explain or describe, pero ang sarap,” the colleague said. “I want to eat there again.” Many Filipinos share this inability to explain exactly why Toyo’s food is so good. It’s familiar, yet different— and we definitely want to eat it again.
Why open a restaurant with food that your mother can make at home? Or one that doesn’t come with unlimited rice and a celebrity endorsement? “There are many layers to Filipino food, many variations and influences and we like to celebrate that at the restaurant,” says Navarra. Our food is food that we’re very familiar with, to the point that we don’t question how it’s made, where the ingredients come from or its history. It’s just there, on the dinner table, at the office cafeteria and places with singing cooks and waiters. Navarra dares to ask the hows and whys, and the result is silog, pork barbecue and Bahay Kubo’s vegetables, that is different, inventive, creative and brave. These qualities led to Toyo Eatery, just turning two years old this year and still tottering on its feet, being given the distinction of the Miele One to Watch Award for Asia. “Receiving [it] was such a pleasant surprise for us, especially for a small restaurant like ours,” says Navarra. “It’s a nice indicator for us that we’re on the right track and that people around Asia are getting more interested in Filipino food. Hopefully the interest in Filipino food continues to grow.”
Oh, and did we mention that Navarra is genuinely one of those humble, salt-of-the-earth kind of guys? On a regular day, you’ll see him hanging out in Panaderya Toyo, the boulangerie that he recently opened with Chef Richie Manapat to #stopbadbread, helping out in the kitchen and overseeing the preparation of one of the panaderya’s addictive palamans. His Instagram is full of, well, food—local produce, dishes created by his idols. The guy is a fan of food, especially Filipino food—and it shows.
“I feel we’re just at the beginning, with lots to learn and lots to discover so we’re determined to push on to further evolve and get better bit by bit,” he says. As Navarra guides his restaurant through its toddler years, we can only expect more—after all, with over 7000 islands, hundreds of regional cuisines and countless iterations of each dish, Navarra and his team have so many more to discover. In a time when Filipino cuisine is getting the international recognition it has so long deserved, Toyo Eatery is doing well to give Filipinos a taste of what we can do, right here in our own backyard. “We’d be happy with Toyo as being one of the places that contributes to the narrative of what Filipino food and food by Filipinos can be,” says Navarra. International recognition for the humble pork barbecue? Who would have thought? Not in our wildest dreams.—TEB