I first turned to cooking out of a simple necessity: the desire for a good, nourishing meal at home. I had no formal background in cooking at the time. It began as a way to refocus my mind, to quiet the noise in my head. The act itself was cathartic—measured, repetitive, grounding. What started as a practical activity soon became an obsession. I found myself cooking every day, driven by an urge to learn more: the processes behind each dish, the nature of ingredients, the logic of techniques, the science and reasons flavors behave the way they do.

Over time, as my understanding deepened—through constant practice, study, and even exposure to modernist approaches—the cook in me was compelled to step beyond the comfort of my own kitchen, and beyond my personal ideas of comfort food. I began to see the bigger picture: that food is more than what appears on a plate, more than the sensations of taste and texture on the palate.

That awakening led me to confront the reality of how the world feeds itself—the politics, systems, and structures that shape global food production, and how they influence the way we eat today, ultimately altering the future of food and cuisine as a whole. It was a reality I could no longer ignore. Cooking, for me, became a political act, as all art inevitably is. It is about embracing responsibility while creating what I now call food experiences.

Many of our heritage ingredients — Cebu cinnamon, landang, Asin tibuok, kadyos, pili, heirloom rice, gamet — including native and endemic fruit trees — such as katmon, batwan, tabon-tabon, mabolo, biasong, libas, kalumpit, and sapinit — are rapidly disappearing. Their survival is threatened by loss of habitat, neglect, and the absence of commercial value that would encourage their propagation. Even indigenous crops like tinigib, tinduganay, adlai, and kabog are rarely found in markets today, grown by only a handful of local farmers.

As a cook, these ingredients represent more than flavor; they embody our terroir and, more deeply, my identity. In an era of mass-produced ingredients and globalized food systems, it is easy for a cook to lose direction—and with it, one’s roots.

From the very beginning, my vision was clear: to create meaningful experiences through food, using ingredients I deeply identify with—ingredients that evoke home, memory, and a sense of belonging.

This is the story I set out to tell through the food we serve at Sialo.

Sialo exists to tell these stories and to reopen vital conversations—about the heritage foods we possess, what they mean to us as a people, and what we must do to protect and preserve them for future generations.

In many ways, this is where the conversation about the future of Cebuano cuisine truly begins.