Restaurateur Nicole Ponseca on marketing the yummiest movement.

by Kristina Bustos

photos provided by Nicole Ponseca

You can’t talk about the growing presence of Filipino restaurants in New York City without mentioning restaurateur Nicole Ponseca. The former advertising executive opened Maharlika — “nobility” in Tagalog and a reference to an ancient warrior class of the Tagalog people — in 2011 because of the lack of options for Filipino restaurants in the city. This became glaringly apparent to her when her advertising clients would ask if they could try the food of her heritage and she realized she had very few suggestions.

Maharlika began as a brunch pop-up inside the French restaurant Resto Leon, and it’s now one of the top Filipino restaurants in New York City. In order to make it to that level, services like restaurant analytics may have been essential. Ponseca then followed Maharlika with another Filipino restaurant, Jeepney — a popular form of public transportation in the Philippines — in 2012. After both restaurants were opened, Ponseca became a go-to person for journalists, bloggers and foodies alike to ask about Filipino cuisine — subsequently raising the profile of her culture as well as mine. Chef and food writer Andrew Zimmern called Filipino food the “next big thing” in 2012 in the Washington Post.

In October of this year, Ponseca sought to elevate more than just Filipino food; she wanted the culture and its people also recognized. Inspired by Art Kane’s 1958 jazz portrait “A Great Day in Harlem” — which is considered one of the greatest images of the jazz community — Ponseca gathered Filipino-Americans for a photo to celebrate Filipino American History Month that included Ponseca, singer Lea Salonga, actress Liza Casasola, psychology professor Kevin Nadal, Tony-winner Lea Salonga, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford. The image circulated around social media and nabbed Buzzfeed’s attention; the site profiled every person in the image in a post, “Lea Salonga And 33 Other Epic Filipino-Americans Got Together For A Big Family Photo.”

“I always look to the black community for cues on how [to] uplift our identity and our community,” Ponseca says. “I don’t think there’s another group of people that had to fight harder to be paid, to be their own people.”

Last year, Ponseca’s work to increase Filipino identity in America was recognized, as she won an Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York Award. Perhaps some of her vigor for exposing her culture stems from the fact that she grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and was rarely exposed to other Filipinos, especially those with varying stories, careers and physical appearances.

Ponseca’s upbringing was all too familiar to mine, as I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in the Midwest. Her stories were my stories, and when we met up for an interview, we talked about food, yes, but we also talked about Eskinol, a facial whitening product that is popular in the Philippines. Many Filipinas (including myself) grew up being encouraged to use Eskinol.

“If it wasn’t one thing, it was another,” says Ponseca. “I’m too big. I’m too loud. I’m too dark. I was like, ‘I cannot look to others to seek redemption or validation. You have to do it yourself.’ What I want to make sure is I don’t look for anyone else to validate us.”

While Ponseca’s activism sometimes comes in the form of photo arrangements, her focus is to use food to define what it means to be Filipino.

“I wasn’t going to be an actress,” she explains. “I’m not going to be the president of something. But if I could use whatever talent I had in advertising and strategy in communications and branding, I was going to do that — I hired myself is what I always say — to do it for Filipinos.”

Maharlika and Jeepney aren’t the only Filipino restaurants in their downtown Manhattan location. There’s also Pig & Khao, Cafe 81, Kuma Inn, Grill 21 and Ugly Kitchen, and other restaurants in Queens and in Brooklyn. Some of the chefs have appeared in cooking shows like Top Chef, others have published cookbooks. Case in point: Jeepney won Time Out New York’s 2014 Battle of the Burger with its Chori Burger, and look up Manila Social Club’s Ube Donuts — the latest craze in Filipino food. The rising hype on Filipino cuisine even warranted its own New York City’s Filipino Restaurant Week, which kicked off its second year in May.

Each restaurant has its own identity — some cooking up traditional meals, others updating the recipe to create new flavors, and most have welcoming decor pieces like wool vintage rugs. Take Maharlika’s menu for example, which includes Fried Chicken and Ube Waffle. Ube is “purple yam” in English. Filipinos use ube to make jam that then becomes the main ingredient in many snacks and desserts. But at Makarlika, Chef Miguel Trinidad combines the traditional Filipino ingredient with a Western failsafe (waffles) for an approachable and delicious dish.

Ponseca and I sat at Maharlika hours before its doors opened to talk the value of Filipino food, feedback from our community, and what it means to be a modern-day Filipina.

 

Kristina Bustos: Maharlika modernizes Filipino food. Was that your intention when you were planning to open the restaurant?

Nicole Ponseca: I don’t want to compete to be the best Filipino restaurant. I want to compete to be a good restaurant that happens to be Filipino. So there are two roles here: One, I was mad [about the lack of visibility]. We speak English. We are abiding citizens, [and] we assimilate so well. We love America, but where was the love back for our food and for [Filipino] culture without completely washing away our identity? And for [Maharlika] to succeed, it would have to be an option among Greek, Chinese, Thai and American food. That success. Like, “What are you guys in the mood for?” “Oh, I don’t know.” So I wanted to make it not just, “I’m only in the mood for Filipino food.” It’s like, “Oh my God, let’s go to that restaurant that’s awesome. Great service, great drinks and the food is fucking amazing. What do they sell? It’s Filipino food. Oh my God, that’s right.” You know what I mean? Like do you want to be a good Filipino writer? Or do you want to be a good writer?

 

Kristina Bustos: What aspects of Filipino identity and culture did you want to bring into the food experience?

Nicole Ponseca: I want Filipinos to see themselves celebrated by non-Filipinos for being themselves. So, like, kamayan [“shake hands” in Tagalog, but it also means to eat with your hands] is an example of that or balut [boiled developed bird embryo egg] is another example. I was so embarrassed when I would have my American friends over and my dad would literally sit with one fucking knee up [at the table] and I’m embarrassed as shit, like “Can you please order pizza if you’re gonna eat with your hands?” So I looked at everything that I could’ve possibly been embarrassing for a Filipino, and I turned it [into part of the experience]. Instead of you making fun of me that my dad eats with his hands, I’m going do it as a beautiful feast and you’re going to want to sit here and do it, too.

 

KB: Were there any Filipinas who inspired you growing up?

NP: I would say that there were very few, but one that stands out is Tia Carrere. But then I was pissed in high school because I had to convince everyone that she was Filipino, because she [publicly] said she was Spanish, Chinese and Hawaiian. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t say she was Filipino. I think, also, that there was probably a semester in sixth grade or eighth grade where Lou Diamonds Phillips also claimed not to be Filipino. So I would say, “Oh, I’m Hawaiian.”

 

KB: You’re also redefining the image of a Filipina. To you, what is a modern day Filipina or Filipina-American?

NP: I’m not so big on titles. So a modern Filipina… I don’t know what that is really, but what I can say is that I’m happy with some of the old ideals that my mom holds. She’s not necessarily modern, neither was her mom, and I’m very much like them in that way — I think Filipinos raise strong women generationally. It isn’t a new concept for us to have a president or a CEO or to speak our minds. I don’t know many Pinays [a colloquial term for Filipinas] that aren’t pretty honest — good and bad. What I do hope to see, in this modern age, is more Filipinos. Period. I would like to see a modern time defined by more Filipinos doing their thing and getting recognized for it.

Kristina Bustos is a Filipina journalist raised in the Midwest. She now calls New York home and helps in bringing “varying stories” about Filipinos through her writing. She is part of a live theatre production group called “Raised Pinay.”