Tinadhana: Chef of the Year Frances Tariga's Triumphant Homecoming

(SPOT.ph) You might hear her before you see her, and Chef Frances Tariga has no problem with that whatsoever.

But if you haven't heard of her, she's not one to take offense, despite multiple television appearances (see: Cutthroat Kitchen, Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, and her victory on Morimoto's Sushi Master). The chef understands all too well that the bubble of culinary fame is a tough one to bust. Even the most talented chef might only ever reach the same few hundred people over and over again; while some might be content with that, this visibly queer and extremely unapologetic Michelin hopeful only knows how to shoot for the moon. More importantly, she doesn't think it should stop with her.

Tariga exists right on the line between ‘no filter’ and ‘nothing to hide’—a quality that took years and a little professional help for her to embrace, “among a million other things,” as she puts it. This isn't a trait one has to wait to uncover; if you enter her current local homestead before service starts, every person on her staff gets a playful roast or a wake-up call at some point.

A sudden yell or cheer from the kitchen at Incanta Cave Bar and Restaurant could mean anything when it comes to Tariga—a clear indication that she's built a team that suits her. But even though this way of working has won her awards in New York, building it back up here in the Philippines didn't come easy.

Also read: This Stunning Quezon City Hotspot Is Serving Rolls by a 'Sushi Master' Winner

Her rough-around-the-edges, unapologetic ways don't necessarily earn a woman special or even decent treatment—even as men get pats on the back for the same thing.

When you put it all together, it's a story that unfortunately hasn’t faded out of relevance or relatability: to be female, loud, and gay is a recipe for struggle, and what Tariga did to cope in those early years did not ultimately prove to be a solution—the addiction that would plague her peers seemed part and parcel of the life she'd been born into.

And yet: "Something told me I couldn't end up like everyone else I knew," she muses. That instinct at the time (circa 2004) spelled culinary school for her; in the years after graduating, she found herself becoming the executive chef of a restaurant in Dubai and of the Abu Dhabi Ladies' Club, before finally serving the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.

“When I landed that first job in Dubai, [there were people who knew me who said] I’d screw up in three months or something,” she says, with no darkness across her face. “They had reason to say that. And that kept me going for a while, until all the other stuff—the harassment [women come to expect even in a professional setting]—started to feel worse. I realized I had to power through with something more solid than having a chip on my shoulder, and that’s something I’m still working on. But I’ve internalized that it’s not an excuse.”

By the time she moved to New York City, she had learned that skill and grit alone wouldn’t get her the spotlight she felt she could come to deserve, if she didn’t already. (Spoiler alert: We think so.) “You know, everybody thinks the food should speak for itself, or a great space will draw a crowd on its own… but marketing is a huge part of the job,” she shrugs. “You’ve got to learn not to take that personally and do what needs doing. I used to ask my therapist—or maybe ask myself via the sessions with my therapist—why [my former competitors] would get so far in so little time. Then she asked me if I knew about everything they did when no one was looking. Eventually it hit me."

So when Tariga opened Tadhana in New York, nothing came about by accident, for all that she puts great stock into a kind of 'right place, right time' sort of destiny: “I believe in the concept of tadhana very much.” And how couldn't she? From loitering the streets of Sampaloc, to serving the glitterati of the UAE; from being the only competitor to need subtitles in her earlier television stints, to convincing the NYC Pinoy crowd that the food of their own homeland could be special; from building a life abroad where her marriage is actually recognized, to coming home where the talent is plentiful but little else is certain—it's a hero's journey through and through. With all that, the easy way out was never an option for her.

She puts the skills that gave her the Sushi Master win to good use in Incanta; the now-signature rolls were dreamt up and crafted under her watchful eye and unrelenting desire for the best possible outcome. But home is where the heart is, as they say, and even this Japanese-centric menu can't escape the Filipino touch she thinks could continue to put us on the map.

"The decision to focus on Filipino food in Tadhana was intentional," she admits, "and I want to do more of that here, where it comes from... where I come from." But perhaps that, too, is the thing about fate, or tadhana—even the very luckiest must put themselves in its way in order to reap its rewards. Sometimes—sometimes—it may even call you back home.

“It dawned on me at some point that it was time to come home,” she tells SPOT.ph. “My wife really encouraged me to, as well. We were both a little burnt out in New York and I couldn’t run away from my triggers forever.” At the time, this meant a pop-up with the Quezon City restaurant that she now helms.

But she isn't content with one—no one with hunger this intense ever is. "I don't know if this kind of survival mode will ever leave me," she says. An expanse of floor space has recently opened up for her in Bonifacio Global City, and her team is convinced that there's a lot in Tagaytay with their name on it. We're assured by all of them that we can expect bigger, greater things in the months and years to come.

We've often said "watch this space," but in the case of Tariga, it's more akin to watching the sunrise—a grand, natural, inevitable progression of a body floating in space turning to the light.

Yet the phrase she repeats—that she won’t let anyone forget—is “I come from nothing.” Talk to her for more than a day, and you'll know it’s not self-deprecation. Although the world she’s built around her food and her ideas seems like a glittering one, she still honors her roots in Sampaloc, Manila, and acknowledges the leaps she made from surviving out of spite to reaching for the stars—perhaps literally. She’s got her eyes set on that coveted stamp of approval from Michelin: “If I’m going to earn that Star, I want to earn it in my home country. I'm going to earn it in my home country."

This chef is full of fighting words, but anyone who's ever been in her path knows better than to doubt her. She doesn't bulldoze naysayers; she reaches out with both hands and boldly declares there's a better way to be, and no talent under her watch will go unhoned if she can help it.

We can't help but become believers ourselves; she seems to leave us with very little choice in the matter. "Two stars, SPOT!" she cries. "Two freaking stars!"