Chef Charles Montanez blazes anew at his BGC restaurant Liyab

As one might expect, this intentionality coalesces with the food, which is heavily inspired by Montañez’s food memories, especially those of cooking with his mother (whom he describes as an excellent home cook). Decidedly Filipino, he utilises mostly local ingredients that are rare and on the verge of vanishing, shining a torch on these products as his valiant attempt at saving them from oblivion. Most, if not all, nine courses of the tasting menu are finished table-side, a flourish that most chefs will admit is quite a feat. “We do this so we can be closer to our guests and communicate our care effectively,” Montanez explains. “We want to evoke a sense of intimacy—for guests to see the visuals, smell the aroma, movements that set the tone on how they are to receive the dish before they taste it. A lot happens to ingredients before reaching the plate and the palate, and this is also a way of paying tribute to the farmers and food producers in the country. When done with intention, it becomes less of a performance and more of an authentic display of our point of view.”

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Liyab’s inaugural menu is something that Montañez has orchestrated in his head for a year, and the deliberate placements and edits are evident in each well-executed component cooked over open fire. A first course of wood-fired ox tongue and bone broth is layered with a custard of local corn, the bone broth butter melted table-side in a flambadou for guests to fully savour the rich aromas of slow-cooked bulalo. Nostalgia is a strong theme implemented throughout the journey, with the evocative scent of Vietnamese kampot pepper anchoring a dish of Wagyu sirloin and ox heart katsuboshi served with Bacolod tinigib and Sagay sea urchin. Looking at it, one will not immediately see how this is evocative of Montañez’s childhood meals at Pepper Lunch, but close your eyes and the smells and flavours will take you there.

The botan ebi with house-made miso ice cream and bleu cheese plays with textures and temperatures as a teabag of smoked prawn heads and kalkag is steeped to make hot prawn tea and then poured over the cold components. The rest of the menu is a push and pull of thoughtful and playful flavours (and memories), giving diners things to ponder while instantaneously smiling at elements that resonate.

After the last savoury course of a sumptuous salo-salo with both pork and fish (plus an array of side dishes and sauces to boot), pastry chef Hanna Quitatchon holds your attention with a multi-sensory interpretation of the local street-side cooler called skrambol. She then sends diners off with memorable petit fours that include an incredibly rich dulce de leche skewer, clearly reading the memo on stoking the flames of our core memories. 

Liyab is not even half done—there is an outdoor dining area for a barbecue concept (“think of it as a Filipino ihaw-ihaw party”) that Montanez is set on launching soon. When the concept is finally fully unveiled, we can be assured that it was given intense thought and that nothing was left to chance. 

Liyab is definitely the product of his love for cooking and a young career forged through proverbial fires. At this point, Montanez knows what he wants and also what he does not. “I just do not want (Liyab) to bend to the norm or other people’s rules,” he professes, “or to be known other than what I intended it to be, which is a place to express and be proud of what we can do as Filipinos.”

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