A look at the menu for Toyo Eatery and Abacá’s upcoming collab dinner in SF

Asia’s 50 Best Restaurant in the Philippines 2023 Toyo Eatery is coming to San Francisco this September for an Abacá collaboration | Photos by Melissa de Mata from @restaurantabaca/Instagram and Lifestyle Inquirer

Chef Jordy Navarra of Toyo Eatery, which ranked 42nd at this year’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, is coming to San Francisco for a two-night collaborative dinner with acclaimed Filipino restaurant Abacá on Sept. 5 and 6.

The James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, run by couple chef Francis Ang and director of operations and co-owner Dian Ang made the announcement on Instagram this week.

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The multi-course dinner will feature a menu of tinolang manok, tokwa’t baboy, kinilaw na puso ng saging, kinilaw na isda, smoked Wagyu kilawin, Berkshire pork belly silog, duck pinikpikan, dinuguan blood sausage, seafood batil patong, and desserts of peach mango pie and bicho bicho.

Abacá is already selling tickets for $125 each on Resy. There are 17 time slots to choose from—as early as 5 p.m. to as late as 9 p.m.

The Angs opened their restaurant at the Hotel Alton in 2021. What was initially a fundraiser for their hometown of Samar that was ravaged by a storm in 2013 became a pop-up called Pinoy Heritage that ran for seven years. Abacá’s mission, Ang said in an interview, is to “create a welcoming and authentic dining experience that showcases the diverse culinary cuisine of the Philippines with a California sense.”

It has earned recognition from American publications for its ingenious take on Filipino cuisine. Esquire, which listed it as one of 40 Best New Restaurants in the US in 2021, raved about its pancit made with fresh, handmade noodles topped with scallops, calamansi, and corn, and served with a housemade XO sauce of shrimp paste, scallops, and chiles.

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Likewise, the New York Times included it on its 2022 list of 50 restaurants they love, calling its barbecue sticks of beef tongue and homemade longganisa “habit-forming.”

Navarra’s Toyo Eatery, on the other hand, opened in 2016 and has since earned accolades from international restaurant ranking bodies for its inventive spin on classic Pinoy staples. The restaurant is also credited for championing the use of Filipino ingredients and techniques outside of popular Tagalog-centric cuisine.

“It’s not about recreating dishes,” Navarra told Nolisoli.ph a month after his restaurant opened in Makati. “You can be Filipino in terms of how it feels, how it tastes, what you use, and how you use it.”