Images KEVIN DE ASIS

Everything is happening in Iloilo City and it’s not only because it has been declared the Philippines’ first UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.

Over the weekend, on July 27, the 10th edition of Sabores de Visayas was held with the usual mix of nationally or internationally renowned Filipino chefs and local chefs, some of them just emerging, in the Western Visayas region. This year’s lineup of guest chefs was stellar—Kalel Chan of the Raintree Restaurant Group, Mikel Zaguirre of Locavore (and many other F&B establishments, including the Bizarre Bar), the very first Filipino Asia’s Best Female Chef (2016) Margarita Forés, Macroasia executive chef at Asian Development Bank Panky Lopez, Patrick Go of Your Local, restaurateur, TV chef, and Manila Bulletin Lifestyle columnist Sandy Daza, and Myke “Tatung” Sarthou of Lore. They worked closely with Iloilo’s chefs, established and emerging, led by Jose Wilson Esperancilla and Maridel Uygongco of Maridel’s, a goto pastry shop in Iloilo City known to have pioneered the guava cake.

Sabores de Visayas is a passion project of Rafael Jardeleza Jr., otherwise known as Chef Tibong, who has been pushing Iloilo’s culture and cuisine for decades. His longtime advocacy in behalf of the culinary wonders of Iloilo was recognized alongside a Nov. 9, 2021 resolution officially declaring the city and the province as “Food Haven of the Philippines.” I’ve written before that if every province or city in the country had somebody like Tibong, we would love the Philippines more because to him doing what he does for Ilonggo food and cooking isn’t a job or a career, isn’t a business or an enterprise, it’s a life. Over the past 15 years, he has brought me only twice to his own restaurant because he would rather take me to discover what the rest of Iloilo had to offer, whether the adobo nga takway or pata ng baka in a soup at St. Martha, my favorite turo turo in the world, or the incredible pancit molo at the private dining establishment Balai Vittorio or salamukan, a flavorful soup of carabao head and innards with secret spices that will make you go oooh.

On World Cities Day, Oct. 31, 2023, Iloilo City was named UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, the first in the Philippines to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network composed then of 350 cities in over 100 countries, each shining in a certain creative field, from crafts and design to film, music, literature, and, in this case, gastronomy, a reward that Tibong, along with all the cooks and chefs and gourmands of Iloilo, plus the LGU, the farmers, fishermen, food producers and entrepreneurs, and the public markets in all the seven districts of the city, is now reaping from what they have consistently, untiringly planted.

Sabores de Visayas, which started way back at Casa Real with only Tibong and two special guests, restaurateur and food writer Angelo Comsti and Margarita Fores, collaborating with a group Tibong calls “kusineros Ilonggo,” has gone a long way and no less than the country’s foremost chefs have participated, including Chele Gonzalez, Francis Lim, Kevin Navoa, Jorge Mendez, Josh Boutwood, and Thirdy Dolatre.

Most of the editions were held in such a majestic location, the Lopez Heritage House, a Beaux-Arts style mansion built in 1938, more popularly referred to as Nelly Garden. This year, however, due to inclement weather, it was held at the ballroom of a hotel unfamiliar to me, not majestic at all, but well it’s the food that counts.

And the food did count, a 50-hands dinner buffet, in fact a degustacion in steroids, highlighting Iloilo’s culinary heritage. Here are some of the highlights. Kalel Chan and Chef Kieth Bianson, sous chef at Hotel del Rio, collaborated on the callos, lengua con setas with vino tinto, and paella Negra with chipirones.

Working with Mai Mai Lechon, Margarita Forés came up with Lechon de Cerveza Negra served with Capiz puśo sa buri or rice prepared with tuba, then wrapped in woven buri leaves in which it was steamed. 

Mikel Zaguirre and Aimee TiuVillanueva presented a selection of starters and salads, featuring langka, ampalaya with green mango, puso ng saging, salted egg with eggplant, salted egg with shrimp kinilaw, pulpo with dragon fruit and kamote kinilaw, and kinilaw na tanigue with pomelo.

Myke Tatung and Chef Jeff Ticao manned the grill and offered an assortment of what they called “tusoktusok,” featuring barbeques of chicken inasal, kuwaho or beef rectum, atay kag batikulon sang manok or chicken liver and gizzard, shrimp and squid in sinamak sa tuba, buri, and nipa.

Panky Lopez partnered with Breakthrough, the go-to restaurant in Villa Arevalo, to do this year’s roasted karnero or lamb flavored with tanglad, batwan, and libas au jus.

Patrick Go and seasoned Iloilo chef Wilson Esperancilla dished up Ilonggo arroz valenciana with pulled native chicken adobo sa achuete and Guimaras mango and dilis chutney, as well as humba using pork knuckles.

Sandy Daza worked closely with Paul Aligaen of Belmont Hotel Boracay on the ribeye steak and beef tenderloin gravy infused with tabagak or salted fish, tablea tsokolate, and Emperador brandy.

The Richmonde Hotel culinary team, led by executive chef Ariel Castañeda, served up a delectable yet healthy surprise—the vegan isaw, made of inadobo na takway, adobo Ilonggo au jus, dehydrated mushroom chicharon, and dehydrated onion and garlic peels. At this station, there was kalokalo stuffed chicken inasal wings with native sauce, as well as a Sampaguita pizza bar with toppings like sampaguita smoked salmon, sampaguita chorizo Ilonggo, sampaguita carabao’s cheese, roasted sampaguita salt, and sampaguita honey.

Also among the highlights were OJ Salazar’s jamon with smoked pineapple glaze and the three comfort soups—pancit Molo, lina-ga nga kasudlan sang baka, and linatik with shrimp and water chestnuts— by Karl Hibionada, Raffy Hibionada, and Paul Frias.

As for breads, the basket of baguettes and croissants, kouign amann, focaccia, cinnamon cronut, and many others was a hit, courtesy of Theo’s led by pastry chef Herman Wuthrich Buboy.

And no Iloilo meal is complete, especially if it’s Sabores, without the concoctions of Maridel Uygongco, whose offerings this year included pineapple maja, gulaman kape in Kahlua sauce, pandan fruit salad, and guinataan halo halo, along with her premium desserts of ube trois, mango buttercream, potato praline cake, and iba and walnut meringue. Too bad, the weather has not been kind to the guava trees, which did not bear enough fruits this season. I always look forward to Maridel’s famous guava cake!

The 10th edition of Sabores de Visayas was a gem of a milestone in the still unraveling trove of gustatory and culinary treasures in Iloilo. Too bad, my constant Sabores buddies like Linamnam chef Don Baldosano were not with me, but I am particularly happy to have dragged my friends, Philippine Airlines president Stanley Ng and ultimate foodie and food expert Pepper Teehankee with me this time, who both survived, like I did, the ordeal of eating every 15 minutes across Iloilo City and emerged from the ordeal a lover of Iloilo like me. It was also a great pleasure to reunite with Richmonde Hotel Iloilo GM and Iloilo MICE Alliance head Nat Lim and Iloilo Festivals Foundation Inc. president and Iloilo Convention Center COO Allan Tan, who were instrumental in making this and some of the previous editions of Sabores de Visayas a huge success, along with the Department of Tourism—Region 6, Philippine Airlines, Richmonde Hotel Iloilo, MORE Power, Iloilo Business Park of Megaworld, La Filipina Uy Gongko Group, The Manila Bulletin, and Manila Bulletin Lifestyle.