What it takes to open a Filipino restaurant abroad, according to Nicole Ponseca

MANILA, Philippines – We’ve all heard murmurs of Filipino food soon taking its rightful place as the next gastronomic discovery to take the world by storm. The anticipation is there; it’s only a matter of when. 

In 1998, Filipino food simply comprised the delicious meals Nicole Ponseca grew up on. In true Pinoy fashion, the former advertising executive wanted nothing more but to share that taste of home with her friends, colleagues, and clients in New York City. 

Today, Ponseca is best known for her contributions to “breaking through the bamboo ceiling” with restaurants Jeepney and Maharlika, which served modern Filipino favorites for almost a decade. Both served as a mere foundation for her larger advocacy of Filipino representation in the States, further exemplified by her 2019 James Beard Award-nominated cookbook I Am a Filipino: And This Is How We Cook. Her Manhattan and Miami-based restaurants have garnered multiple Michelin guide recommendations and stellar ratings from the likes of The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, and more.

On September 18, Ponseca shared this and more at Manila Gastronomiya 2024, a hospitality symposium attended by prominent figures in the Philippines’ food and beverage industry. 

“I knew that Filipino food deserved a place on the global stage, but I also knew that simply serving food wouldn’t be enough. I needed to be strategic,” she said. “I had to understand not just how Filipino food could survive, but how it could thrive.”

While there were few places serving Filipino food in the early noughties, namely your classic turo-turo’s, homegrown brands Max’s and Goldilocks, as well as Kuma Inn and Cendrillon, Ponseca felt there was yet to be an eatery wherein she could spend her “hard-earned American Express, corporate card dollars.” 

This, coupled with inspiration from rising American documentarian Anthony Bourdain’s gastronomic pursuits, only fanned the flame further. Ponseca recalled the “a-ha” moment: “I said, huh, if I can interpret Filipino food and make it popular, maybe Fil-Ams will know more about their history, maybe [Filipinos] can have a stronger identity in the United States, and maybe we can make an impact through that.”

Running her own restaurant was never in the cards, and this realization took Ponseca’s life for a drastic turn. She found herself climbing the corporate ladder by day and secretly washing dishes by night, all in an effort to learn the trade while saving up for her very first food venture in secret. 

“I worked all the positions because I didn’t want to fail, and I didn’t want to tell my mom what I was planning on doing,” she laughed.

In 2011, Ponseca convinced a French restaurant to convert their space into what would later be coined as a “pop-up” during the weekends. It was here that the seeds of her Filipino brunch concept, Maharlika were planted; a weekend affair no longer came a couple of months later when Maharlika finally opened as a fully-fledged restaurant. Jeepney, described by Ponseca as Maharlika’s “rugged and rock n’ roll” sibling, was unveiled shortly after. 

“It wasn’t just luck, but by design,” Ponseca said of her come-up. 

Ponseca felt it was high time for Filipino food to boom, given how Filipinos accounted for a large chunk of the United States’ Asian population, not to mention the demographic’s high disposable income and footing in American society. 

And yet, the concrete jungle also proved to be a cutthroat one. In a city where only a tenth of restaurants make it past their first year, Ponseca regarded herself as somewhat of an anomaly, as success stories then often excluded women at the helm, let alone a Filipina.

Ponseca emphasized that the average budget for aspiring owners to open an NYC restaurant of their own stood at around half a million dollars. Ponseca went on to open Maharlika with an opening budget of only USD 10,000, with Jeepney at USD 80,000. Paying it forward, Ponseca scored her first merger, which took form in an albeit struggling Filipino restaurant operated by an elderly Pinoy couple, who had pooled money from their retirement funds to operate. 

Despite the steady growth of her ventures, Maharlika and Jeepney “bombed,” even leaving Ponseca without rent to pay for five whole months. 

The setback allowed for a much-needed yet game-changing approach: “The missing piece wasn’t the food itself. It’s always been delicious. It was the story of how we packaged Filipino food and how we shared it with the world.”

Enter balut, kamayan, and two decades’ worth of regional travel and research into Filipino cuisine. 

Ponseca said of respecting her history: “I have been everywhere from Pagudpud to Tawi-Tawi and everywhere in between. Some of my favorite meals are in Isabela, East of the Cordilleras, I hiked the Ifugao mountains, I did everything so that no one can challenge me and say ‘oh, you’re just a Filipino-American.”

Just like how it would be sold back in the motherland, customers ordering the daring egg dish would witness their servers erupting in that all too familiar holler: “Balut!” 

Without having to stray too far away from home, Ponseca also looked to her father’s affinity for eating with his hands, adopting the communal practice from the comfort of their dining room to the equally vibrant Jeepney. 

Simply put, what were once out-of-the-ordinary facets of her culture and every day ultimately turned out to be the “pièce de résistance” that ushered in this brand new era. “How could you be embarrassed about something that you’re so exuberant [about]?” she said.

Soon enough, Ponseca found that her loyal Filipino customers did not dwindle in number, but in percentage, with more and more guests hailing from diverse backgrounds wanting to get a taste.

This confidence also seeped into how they interpret Filipino hospitality. To appease the purists while also impressing the titas and lolas, the restauranteur shared it was their “service-forward, competitive model” that did the trick. Apart from paying tribute to authenticity and teaching some handy Filipino phrases, Ponseca and her staff would offer to waive customers’ meals and offer other dishes should they not meet their expectations. 

“I may have lost four dollars in food costs in comping it, but what I gained is someone who wound up spending with me hundreds of dollars over the lifetime of the restaurant because they felt like they could trust us,” Ponseca told Rappler. 

Despite playing the game in a field miles away from her roots, Ponseca recognizes that the opportunities and challenges back at home for restaurant owners like her couldn’t be any less different. 

“Opportunity alone is not enough. Just like I did in New York, we must plan, strategize, and execute thoughtfully to take advantage of his moment,” Ponseca told her peers. 

“The success of my restaurants wasn’t an accident, it was a direct result of being prepared when opportunity knocked. It was a formula: strategy, vision, product refinement, and execution.” – Rappler.com