Wildflour CEO Ana Lorenzana de Ocampo looks forward to opening more dining concepts

This year for Asia’s Most Influential, we pay tribute to a hundred dynamic men and women through a comprehensive list of luminaries, visionaries, changemakers and more. Encompassing 20 industries, these honourees are the people behind some of the country’s most impressive moments in 2023.

Before opening the first Wildflour Restaurant, Ana Lorenzana de Ocampo had already ticked all the boxes needed to run a food business. A hotel and restaurant administration degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a Le Grande Diploma for pastry and culinary arts from Le Cordon Bleu in London gave her a solid academic foundation; and she had the perfect co-founder in her sister, pastry chef Margarita “Margie” Lorenzana-Manzke.

The sisters’ first outlet was enthusiastically received when it opened in 2012 in Bonifacio Global City (BCG). As The Wildflour Hospitality Group’s CEO, de Ocampo leveraged that success to scale up and diversify, building one of the country’s most successful restaurant groups. “Wildflour has been able to cement a solid track record and reputation of creating meaningful restaurant brand concepts at prime, remarkably designed spaces that resonate with both locals and foreigners alike,” she says. “While being able to maintain this level of relevance and growth for more than ten years is a feat in itself, we hope that we can continue to sustain this for years to come and be able to say that we built something that lasts.”

From her grandmother, who owned a bakery, the Wildflour co-founder got a sense of the discipline required to launch and manage a restaurant. Watching her parents, two of the pioneers behind the enduring success of the Lorins Patis brand, gave her a ringside seat to the industry— and also inspired a tweak to their line-up. “Our recent rebrand of Little Flour Café into George & Onnie’s Filipino Restaurant signifies our commitment to creating fresh takes on locally beloved cuisine that emulates the comfort, love and care of a home-cooked meal,” says de Ocampo. “The name is in honour of my and Margie’s parents, both of whom inspired our passion for food and have been the most ardent supporters of our decision to become restaurateurs in the first place.”

Above Ana Lorenzana de Ocampo (Photo: Patrick Diokno)

Ana Lorenzana de Ocampo (Photo: Patrick Diokno)

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As of 2023, The Wildflour Hospitality Group’s impressive portfolio includes Wildflour Restaurant, Wild Flour Italian, George and Onnie’s, Little Flour Café
+ Bakery, Pink’s, Pizza Sisters, Hotel Bar and Farmacy Ice Cream. It also has an in-house delivery platform, Wildflour To-Go, a testament to de Ocampo’s business savvy. “Our Wildflour team is all-hands-on-deck developing new concepts to expand our portfolio of restaurant brands,” de Ocampo says. “To tease your imagination a little, we are very excited to be working on a Japanese concept—a new world of food that our group has yet to explore. We’re also focused on further growing our partnerships with the women-led community farms, working hand in hand with them to improve and increase their volume and variety of products.”

Embracing e-commerce and establishing new spin-off brands—strategies that drove the success of Wildflour brands during the pandemic—earned de Ocampo Tatler Dining’s Restaurateur of the Year award for 2022. The restaurant group continues to set its sights on greater heights, as well: its flagship brand, Wildflour Restaurant, which boasts stunning new locations at Alabang and Quezon City (now its two largest outlets), teases future locations at Mall of Asia, Baguio, EDSA Shangri-La Plaza, and other prime locations within and beyond Metro Manila. “I remain optimistic and believe that the sky is the limit for Wildflour. Hopefully, we will be prepared to take greater leaps in the future, leaving the door open to potentially venture into expansion outside of the country or even take the company public down the line,” de Ocampo says.

On a personal note, de Ocampo is also proud to have served as head of the organising committee for the Habitat for Humanity 35th Anniversary gala event. “We ended up surpassing our targets and going beyond what I thought we would achieve,” de Ocampo says. “We were showered with enormous blessings and overwhelming support; it really showed me how a single good cause can unite people from multiple parties and sectors, and in turn create a positive difference in other people’s lives.”

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