More often than not, those who aim to be Chef de Cuisine or top chef are expected to focus on building their culinary portfolio — creating dishes-to-be-revered, gaining experience in the best restaurants, and gaining both national and international recognition, that is, before even considering passing on the secrets of their success in the kitchen. But for Chef RV Manabat, sharing the skills and knowledge that earned him his toque is more his priority than building his culinary legacy.
A few years after obtaining his culinary degree from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Manabat returned to his alma matter to become a teacher, eventually opening a humble studio in his hometown of Biñan City to hold his own classes.
By 2017, after much convincing from his growing number of students in Biñan, Manabat finally did something for his personal career and inaugurated an eponymous cafe in Biñan. An instant hit for its excellent menu, Manabat’s attracted clients not only from nearby but from Metro Manila and other parts of the country as well.
Come the now infamous year that was 2020, however, the café’s thriving run was, like everything around the world, interrupted by the pandemic, forcing the chef-owner “to adapt to changes.”
Just like any businessman whose investments are uncertain from the pandemic, Manabat was determined to pursue his vocation amid the health crisis and despite the lockdowns grew the number of his students exponentially via online classes. To date, his tutorial videos have amassed 1.2 million followers on his Facebook page and more than 400,000 subscribers on YouTube.
“To see the people that you train prosper, to see your viewers start up their own businesses, and as simply as to see them happy and fulfilled, those are the rewards of being an educator,” the chef told The Sunday Times Magazine in this exclusive virtual interview.
In affirming how between the two hats of chef and educator, he holds the latter closest to his heart, he explained, “As a chef, if I make you, let’s say a cake, and you enjoyed it, surely, it will be very fulfilling on my part. But the happiness ends there — between the chef and the customer.
“Whereas if you are a chef who teaches people how to become a chef or a good cook, [the happiness] spreads in a community level. Your students will [be the ones to] make the cake for their family and friends, and so it all become contagious. The happiness, the learning and the delicious tastes.”
As he continues to touch and, in many cases, improve the lives of his students who used their learnings to augment their income during these dire times with small food businesses, The Sunday Times Magazine deemed it fitting to feature the admirable teaching chef.
How did he hone such selflessness in the highly competitive industry of haute cuisine? The answers and more in today’s cover story.
STM: Take us back to your childhood. Have you always loved to cook?
Chef RV Manabat: I started in the kitchen at the early age of nine. Though I can’t remember my first dish, I remember using hotdogs in different dishes — adobo, menudo, sizzling hotdog. I love experimenting ever since.
My mother is a very good cook, she prepares meals for us every day and I was always with her whenever she’s cooking. Actually, we all cook in the family but I am the only one who pursued a professional passion for cooking.
Ever since I was a kid, in my early high school days, I already knew I wanted to become a professional chef, or something to do with food.
Since the death of my father, my mother stopped cooking. It was him who used to request for her to prepare his favorite dishes.
From then on, she gave her kitchen to me, which became my test kitchen
Your training as a chef is very impressive, having gone from Manila to New York and Paris, just to name a few. Is it necessary for a chef to gather such extensive experience to become the best?
I just love learning and exploring and I am more of a visual learner. I am not someone you can keep inside the room or the kitchen and then teach me how to do these basic skills.
I am the type of person that if, for example, I found pizza really delicious, I’d like to see how the Italians do it. But when I learn recipes abroad, the first thing I do is list down the ingredients and see what local substitute we have here so that the Filipino market, my attendees or viewers [from online cooking show] can easily relate to it.
To me, it’s more of a self-fulfillment as a chef, to learn the authenticity of dishes. That’s why I make sure that every year, if my time and budget permits, I leave the Philippines to learn something new from a different country or culture.
Many chefs with experience as valuable as yours might want to keep their skills and learning to themselves as they climb the ladder of success. In your case, you’ve been eager to share them as soon as you could. Have you always wanted to teach culinary arts?
I got the idea that I wanted to teach back in college. When I was in Benilde, I had this teacher, Shirley Joseph. She’s like my mom in the cooking world and was my first formal cooking teacher. She’s very aspirational and she’s really wanted to share not just the recipe but the life within the recipe.
I admit, I am just fair chef, I cannot say that I am a very good chef because there are more chefs that are better than I am. But I can say that I can deliver it in a way that my viewers would understand. I thought, maybe it’s a gift.
Also, I realized I wanted to teach because I enjoy interacting with people. I enjoy exchanging ideas. People have different techniques they might have developed at home, or from their provinces. It’s not a one way-street — in teaching my students, I also learn something from them.
Your huge online following are always eager in turn to thank you for your generosity in sharing recipes you created yourself. Why have you gone that far in your tutorials when you could well save these delicious recipes for your own restaurant and other endeavors you might have in the future?
Why shouldn’t I? Where would I take those recipes? Even if you say you are selling that recipe, you know, you cannot produce millions of cakes in a day and not everyone will buy your cake.
If you stick to your own market, what do you have to be afraid of? That’s why I share it. If you don’t share the real recipe and real technique, the time and ingredients of those who want to do it would go to waste. The emotional effect too — they’d ask where they did wrong even if they followed everything on the recipe.
Recipe and cooking are meant to make people happy. But how can you be happy if your cooking fails?
Also, sharing recipes is like making sure it will live through generations.
For so long we have been saying, Filipino food is well known but why doesn’t it blossom in a way that other cuisines do? That’s because we are afraid to share the real secrets behind our kitchens. We like to keep recipes as heirloom, within our families, generations by generations.
Do you have a few recipes though that are an exception to the rule?
Almost all of my recipes, I have already taught to my students. It’s not really about the recipe — execution and technique make recipes unique.
We had some bakers in our cafe, if they are not motivated, they could not make the cakes even if they are using my recipe.
Maybe right now it sounds like magic to you. Because it is. If you don’t believe in magic, the magic will never happen. Many chefs would raise their eyebrows on me but I’ve been here for so long and there’s really magic in the kitchen.
Given the challenges the pandemic continues to burden restaurateurs and chefs with today, but also beyond this crisis, do you see yourself becoming an educator exclusively in the long run?
Yes, I see myself teaching and having a school. Actually, I was already planning what I am doing now [tutorial videos], but in the form of a cooking show.
On my third or fourth year of teaching, I thought this is not for a lifetime. I thought after five or 10 years, no one would enroll in my class because they would see a fresher face, someone who can deliver it better than me. So my retirement plan, was to continue the small cafe and to have my cooking show.
And then my friends and family told me that TV is no longer the main stream media, people are now online because it’s very accessible.
And then the pandemic happened. That’s when we started with the online platform.
Why do you think people are drawn to your cooking channel? What sets you apart from many other chefs who have also explored holding online classes and tutorials and even those who came before you?
It’s not 100 percent or even 80 percent about me. It’s about empowerment. People, the viewers, they feel empowered when they create a certain recipe.
In our platform, we don’t only focus on recipe, but in life. We share total happiness in that platform, we uplift them and ask them who is it for, for their family? For their customers? So, over all experience, that’s what we are giving, not just the recipe. So, by the end of each video, we make the viewers want to cook the recipe.
Under your guidance, countless home cooks have been able to sharpen their cooking skills, while also inspiring countless others who have never been in the kitchen to come to love and enjoy cooking. With homemade food and eating at home the more preferred lifestyle now, what do you think will happen to restaurants when the pandemic is finally over?
Restaurants will return to normal but I don’t know if diners will come back 100 percent to normal. Now that we have learned how to cook and enjoy home, I think diners will be more discerning.
I also think we’ll revert to that earlier time where we only eat out for special occasions. Because pre-pandemic, we just eat out.
It’s a cultural thing. I remember that when I was younger. My mother would say why should we eat out? Let’s just cook at home, eating out is expensive and not economical.
Really, we don’t know what’s going to happen but my projection is, during the first months post-Covid, because of people’s excitement, they will eat out. But then they would realize, they can do it at home like what they did during pandemic so they’ll go back to eating out on special occasions or when it’s really necessary.