The Chicken Inasal Just Landed in Hollywood: This Pandemic-Born Venture is now in L.A.

(SPOT.ph) Ah, the curious case of pandemic brands. Takeout- and delivery-oriented concepts and brands boomed during the time of COVID, but the question always remained: what then once pandemic restrictions ease up?

With more folks going out more, some of these pandemic brands have faded into the background (if not closed completely), while others have taken the opportunity to open their own physical outposts with dine-in areas as well. And then you’ve got Manila Inasal—which is now opening as a cloud kitchen all the way in Los Angeles.

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Here’s how local purveyor Manila Inasal made it to Hollywood:

Famed for their not-so-traditional, uber-juicy inasal, pandemic brand Manila Inasal's flying their chickens all the way to Tinseltown. Their new area of coverage? Los Angeles, California, as they recently opened a ghost kitchen on W Sunset Boulevard that covers the Hollywood area. This venture is now available for pickup and delivery orders on U.S. food-delivery apps Doordash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats.

You can thank owner and chef Natalia Moran’s U.S.-based partners, the Simon family, for helping make this possible. Initially, Moran was slated to do a ghost-kitchen consultancy project for them in LA—but instead of making an entirely new concept for them, she figured it be the best opportunity to bring Manila Inasal to the area. 

While it’ll of course carry staples like their Chicken Inasal, Bangus Inasal, and Pork Belly Inasal, the menu in their LA leg has some differences from its Philippne counterpart—e.g. exclusives like Lumpiang Gulay and an Eggplant Omelette Rice Bowl (yup, that's tortang talong). “There are also some items on the Philippine menu that we are not putting on [LA’s] as my partners believe the [locals] are either not ready for those, or don't know of those and [it’d] take time for us to introduce those dishes,” says Moran. “So we are focusing on a very tight menu muna, catered to the L.A. market, then add more dishes later on.”

Owned by Chef Natalia Moran of The Sunny Side Group, Manila Inasal first opened as a cloud kitchen in San Juan in 2021, serving takes on inasal that weren’t quite traditional—their signature chicken inasal uses a whole spatchcocked chicken accompanied by inasal sauce, a tangy-spicy green chili sauce, and ensaladang talong. From their first home base in San Juan they expanded to open a cloud kitchen in Makati. Earlier this year they also opened a physical stall at the MITSUKOSHI BGC food hall, with space for dine-in.

For more information, check out Manila Inasal’s Facebook page.

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