This Filipino word for delicious is a perfect name for an exciting new restaurant concept in London that has food critics raving
In the kitchen of a hot new bistro-style restaurant in London’s swanky Mayfair, a young Filipino chef-restaurateur is tweaking a sinigang recipe.
It’s not quite there yet. “I’m still working on it. It’s not sour enough, and it must be more maasim [sour], you know?” Ferdinand “Budgie” Montoya admits, a tad ruefully, that he doesn’t speak Tagalog. But truth is, judging from the menu of his restaurant Sarap, he does. Fluently. Because as every Filipino knows, our language is food.
“I don’t need to speak the language to know how to cook it,” he says. “You know, there’s a food language and a food that people understand in the kitchen.” And Sarap certainly understands this.
Born in Davao, raised in Sydney, and now living in London, Montoya opened Sarap at 10 Heddon Road earlier this year, a residency space that had previously hosted many successful London restaurant concept pop-ups. The Mayfair address is a statement in itself. Step out into Regent Street and the Burberry flagship is in front of you. Walk down a block and you’re on Savile Row. You’ve got to be bold to situate a Filipino bistro in this area; it immediately comes with a host of expectations in terms of menu, quality, price and service.
See also: Filipino Food In Seattle: Why 'Musang' is More Than Just a Restaurant
Fortunately, Sarap does not disappoint. Described as possessing “a Filipino soul and a London heart”, it is reassuringly familiar and intriguingly novel at the same time. The interiors are contemporary yet comforting, with industrial details interspersed with lots of greenery that evokes the tropics. The menu is surprisingly brief, but all the right dishes are there and, more importantly, the flavour profiles are spot-on: sour, salty and sweet, not to mention crispy and crunchy.
The food is meant to be shared, Filipino-style, and though there are only two of us, we opt to try almost everything on the menu, starting with fried chicken skin and working our way through the ensaladang talong, ginataang kalabasa, rellenong crispy pata, celeriac kare kare, poussin inasal and kale laing—all accompanied by a Calamansi Daiquiri laced with Don Papa rum.
As much as we’re dying to try Montoya’s signature lechon suckling pig, stuffed with lemongrass aromatics and truffled pork adobo rice, we must beg off as it requires 48 hours’ notice and is good for four to six people. Instead, we enjoy the adobo rice that’s stuffed into the crispy pata. The key, of course, to bringing out the medley of flavours is the sawsawan (condiment).
It is somewhat unusual to have a non-Filipino explain Filipino cuisine to Filipino diners, but our server Saul, half-Pakistani/half-English, is adamant that we dip our food into the sawsawan, especially the homemade suka—the vinegar that comes with the inasal and the chicken skin to appreciate the unique taste and texture of these dishes.
See also: The Culinary Capitals of the Philippines: Chef JP Anglo’s Guide to Negros Occidental
