Private Dinner in a Local Home: Heritage Heirloom Filipino Cooking with a Historically-Minded Host in Quezon City

Giney is a chef and a restaurateur who specializes in historical, heritage and heirloom Filipino cuisine. Her cooking starts with exhaustive research – she describes herself as a culinary sleuth and is constantly hunting down heirloom family recipes that are at risk of being forgotten. She researches which ingredients would have been available at the time and imagines what was in the pantry as she perfects the recipe. She loves the way that food can connect you to the history and culture of a place, creating a visceral connection to the past and making it a continuing story, which includes you.

She and her partner Beth share a great interest in Philippine history, heritage conservation, arts and crafts. The exterior of their beautiful home is covered with greenery and vines, and the inside is filled to the brim with Filipino art and artifacts.

Arrive at Giney and Beth’s enchanting home in a gated suburb of Manila. Your meal will consist of a carefully curated menu of Filipino dishes, both common and uncommon, ranging from the 16th-19th century. The menu will showcase traditions, the bounty and cultural influences in Filipino food through time. A brief tour of the house and its collection of folk, antique and contemporary art works will be offered to work up an appetite or wind down a hearty meal. Conversations about Filipino food in culture, a little music appreciation perhaps and a taste of the much vaunted Filipino hospitality.

You might taste dishes such as cocido (a hearty stew with beef, pork meatballs, chorizo, beans and vegetables) served with roasted eggplant in a peppery vinaigrette or a tomato-olive salsa, chicken relleno (roasted chicken with ham and Edam cheese which takes two days to prepare), or her crispy pata (pork leg) with spiced vinegar dip. Your meal will end with a typical Filipino dessert, perhaps a silky leche flan (milk custard with a caramelized top) and a cup of Barako coffee, the iconic coffee of the Philippines dating to the 1880s.