Nothing Lazy About Him: Chef of the Year Patrick Go Shows No Signs of Stopping

(SPOT.ph) Over a decade ago, there was a young, quiet chef running the back of the now-closed Black Sheep. If his food didn’t make you take notice, his demeanor would; there is, even today, a boy-next-door charm and soft-spoken humility to Patrick Go, Spot’s Chef of the Year 2026, that people tend not to expect of a chef as skilled and seasoned as he.

Even in his early career, he’d catch the attention of two culinary legends, Florabel Co and Jessie Sincioco, before landing a backbreaking stint in the kitchens of Makati Shangri-La—all done with barely a peep of complaint. “I guess in any room, I feel like I’m there to learn,” he says. “You learn so little if you react before absorbing.”

Today, though, he’s found his voice in more ways than one. The old, frenetic urge he had to be everything, everywhere, all at once now emerges as a different energy. Rather than pile on the bells and whistles into one or two menus, Chef Pat channels his love for the breadth and diversity of Asian cuisine through both fusion and fission—a careful curation of tasks, recipes, and supplies that allow him to juggle the thousand-and-one things he’s got going on. You’ll have heard of at least three of them at any given moment.

Chef Pat was once Banker Pat—and while that’s not a real title, it was his real job. It was all out of a sense of duty; practically his whole family touches on the world of banking in one way or another. But the truth always wins out: “I like to work with my hands,” he has more than once shared with Spot. “And, obviously, I like to eat.” He packed his pens, financial reports, and ties and traded them in for knives, recipes, and a toque, enrolling at the International School for Culinary Arts and Hotel Management to pursue his cooking dreams, when the institute was still in its infancy.

After a few years of exploration, he followed his personal tastes and found himself working under Chef Colin Mackay at Sala Bistro. Having a professed love for bistro food drove him there, and perhaps helped him thrive, as Chef Colin is known to run a tight and efficient ship—which works, as evidenced by both the loyalty of his diners and his propensity to help produce some of the strongest cooks in today's dining scene. This is where numbers would come back to haunt Pat a little bit—the business side of running a restaurant, after all, cannot live in the shadows forever.

Having honed his skills, by now as sharp as a santoku’s edge, it was time for a change. Enter Black Sheep. Having worked at the original, he found himself in charge of the restaurant’s second incarnation, where his mettle would be put to the test: being in charge of your own place, as one can imagine, can be quite pressure-filled. It was at this quiet corner of Pasong Tamo where his Asian bent slowly emerged, albeit made like a good singer still finding his voice. Chef Pat himself will be the first to say he just wanted to make everything but the kitchen sink—echoing Japanese flavors, Chinese, Korean, using French techniques—and while that can seem chaotic, he had developed the skills to pull it off. Just ask the lucky ones who came over to eat there.

It was only when told by food personality Cheryl Tiu that he “needed to find his voice and tell his own story” that he decided to lock in and change the dining concept into a Filipino-Chinese-inspired menu, reflecting his life and his background. But as quickly as things began to take shape, it turned into another chapter cut short—no supernova for this rising star just yet.

After the closure of Black Sheep, he found himself floating around doing restaurant consultations—and in a way, all that floating would bring him to some version of home. Negrense on his mother’s side, the offer to begin something totally new—Fresh Start Organic Natural Store & Cafe, and subsequently, Lanai by Fresh Start with organic farmer-in-chief Ramon Uy, Jr. “It just made sense,” says Pat. “Plus they’re still doing great things by showcasing the local organic produce. I learned a lot.”

Around that same circa, he would also meet Charles Paw of Tasteless Food Group, who got him to make a stall in his Grid Food Market called Gochu Gang. Working with Charles led him to becoming the executive chef of Your Local at a time when the vacancy was palpable. Given room to evolve the offerings, he subtly moved away from its predominantly Southeast Asian flavor profile and injected some Filipino and other Asian notes, to much success. His formula? Make delicious food that is as accessible as possible; shareable (optional) and craveworthy; not too fussy, nothing too fancy.

Today, Your Local is bustling: a lively neighborhood spot that is a beacon in the Legaspi Village dining scene.

His current flagship, Lazy Suzy at the Podium, was an idea drafted after the closure of Black Sheep—yes, that long ago. Having dined with him many times, I can personally attest to his love of Chinese and Japanese food, and to his well-honed voice: half of the ideas from his original draft made it to the Suzy menu you’ll see today. Though sleek and contemporary, the modern East Asian cuisine may seem different from what you’re used to, but you’ll find you’re quite fluent in this food language after all. Fusion used to be a dirty word in dining—it seemed tactlessly trendy for a good chunk of its existence. But, as always, you just have to do it right; Chef Pat is too much of a perfectionist to ever attempt it otherwise: “My parents always told me… to let the work speak for me.”

There are a myriad of other projects in the pipeline, under his new, independent restaurant group called Mamamo Corp. One of them is called Chinita, dedicated to his lovely wife, Pam—it will be a purely Cantonese concept, yet still with his trademark modern flourishes. Then there is Lazy Suzy down South, a bar concept, and much more. Does he sleep? You be the judge. But what he’ll never do is whine to you about it. He attacks the gruelling culinary journey with vigor, yet remains humble and kind—even if he barely has time to sit down himself, he will seat you first.

“There is no one way of doing things—I believe mostly in hard work and patience,” he says instead. “Every moment is an opportunity to learn, even in hindsight, so I always tell my team—including interns—to think of yourself as a sponge, absorb everything. And I don’t just mean about how to cook or how to run a restaurant. Learn the many ways you can be kind.”