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Meet the Cebuano Chef From NZ Who's Reawakening Poblacion Dining
Kier Ibañez has a knack for seeing his childhood favorites under a global lens.
Published on Jul 27, 2025
(SPOT.ph) Food is a lot of things to different people; ask Kier Ibañez and he’ll tell you it’s an extension of who he is as a person. We’re with the founder of New Zealand-based Long Table at Bibio in Makati, where he’s currently chef-in-residence. He’s come up with specials—easy-nosh bistro classics with Filipino touches here and there, designed to pair with the shop’s natural wines.
These specials reflect Kier’s own background, as he grew up in Lahug, Cebu before moving to Auckland at 21. His food today fuses these different life chapters: from his home country, he brings with him the flavors he grew up with, as well as the notions of hospitality and of dining as a collective. And from the West, he adopts the ethos of using seasonal produce and ingredients.
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Some of Chef Kier Ibañez's winning plates available at Bibio. Photo by Patricia Baes.
Long Table's Kier Ibañez at Bibio, Makati
From Auckland, Kier flew back to the Philippines a couple of months back, intending to stay in the Philippines for a year. A fan of natural wine (more on that shortly), he sought out fellow natty enthusiasts in Manila, which led him to meeting Bibio’s Justin and Vanessa Apolonio. As the natural wine bar occasionally hosts guests chefs, the idea came about to do a pop-up, which they did two rounds of in May; this initial collab only ran for two Saturdays, with Kier intending to leave for Cebu afterwards. Seeing its success however, Kier and the Apolonios thought to do a longer-term partnership—hence the guest residency, for which Kier has come up with a whole lineup of dishes building on his original pop-up roster.
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With Bibio's Justin Apolonio. Photo by Patricia Baes.
On the menu are small and big plates, perfect for passing around and mixing and matching—they’re designed to all go with one another, Kier tells us. The Smoked Fish Rillette (P490) is a bit of a mini-charcuterie sitch that celebrates the Filipino smoked-fish profile, bringing together smoked tanigue rillette, pickled red onions, pickled cukes, capers, sour cream, and deep-fried focaccia. Another party on a plate is the Zucchini Salad (P540), where crisp-tender ribbons of the summer squash mingle with lightly battered squash blossoms, chickpeas for a welcome cronch (not a typo), and soft dollops of ricotta.
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Smoked Fish Rillette—tanigue, pickled red onions, pickled cukes, capers, sour cream, deep-fried focaccia. Photo by Patricia Baes.
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Zucchini Salad—chickpea, squash blossom, ricotta. Photo by Patricia Baes.
Water spinach a.k.a. kangkong colors the pasta dough forest-green in Kier’s Ravioli (P620), which is filled with ricotta; kept company by asparagus and enoki mushrooms; and blanketed by beurre blanc. The Fried Chicken (P690) shouldn’t be missed—straightforward name aside, Ibañez’s take on Pinoy-style fried chicken is a standout, flaunting crackly-crisp, paper-thin skin and the juiciest meat (it’s cooked sous-vide prior to frying!) that yields at a prod of the fork. Do save room for the Dark Chocolate Rosemary Tart (P380) for dessert; its combo of a buttery tart shell, rosemary-tinged dark chocolate ganache, and lashings of EVOO and sea salt is as unexpected as it is damn unforgettable.
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Ravioli—water spinach, ricotta, asparagus, enoki mushrooms, beurre blanc. Photo by Patricia Baes.
“When I came up with this menu, I was saying, it's… a take of how I learned how to cook in New Zealand,” Ibañez tells us. “It's very westernized, but as you can see, it's kind of like westernized but the flavors are very Filipino. That's when my Filipino side comes in—not forgetting your roots and the flavor.”
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Fried Chicken—half chicken, grilled spring onion, chicken oil mayo. Photo by Patricia Baes.
Falling in Love With Food
He whips up similar "westernized Filipino" plates for his pop-up venture in New Zealand, called Long Table, which he started during the pandemic. He explains his approach: “I think food represents who you are as a person, and I think that your food is like a reflection of who you are. So this is me learning western food in New Zealand, and then again, sticking to my roots.”
His cooking is largely influenced by his mom, who taught him some of her cooking chops when he was younger; and his partner Stuart Houghton, who opened Kier’s eyes to the idea of cooking with seasonality in mind. “He's the one who really told me about [the importance of using] seasonal produce. Like, [he would say], ‘You should be cooking this because that's what's available in the market and stuff like that.’”
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A special of the night we visited, with water spinach linguine, tomato, and Ibañez’s own Italian sausage. Photo by Patricia Baes.
Kier has always been a creative at heart, albeit for a different medium. “I used to be a makeup artist back then,” he shares. He was just 21 when he flew to New Zealand, following his mom's death; his brother had been staying there six years ahead of him. Kier wanted to study makeup history and do makeup professionally, and his brother, though supportive, proposed that Kier take a culinary course to help secure his residency and stay long-term in the country. Kier initially intended to go back to doing makeup after the course, but found himself “really loving cooking” and staying on this track. “Instead of doing makeup on faces, I now do the makeup for food now,” he says with a laugh.
It helps that both cooking and putting on makeup are—or can be considered—art forms at their core. “When you do makeup, you have to edit as well, and you have to think—like, is this thing that you're putting on the face [compatible]... Same [process] as food,” he explains. “You also have to understand flavors, you also have to understand texture, the whole balance. Same with makeup. You don't put [just] anything… you put there because it looks good on that person. Like, you have to think about [the occasion]—like where is she going? It's like that with food. It's being creative.”
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Dark Chocolate Rosemary Tart—EVOO, flaky salt. Photo by Patricia Baes.
After culinary school, Kier worked a couple of jobs—he had a stint cooking for a rest home, then at a café called fond(ou). Stuart helped lead Kier down the rabbithole of natural wine, as he had a junior at work who was married to a natural winemaker. “One of our first dates was funny. [Stuart] invited my mom and our friend to a natural wine bar [slash bistro, in New Zealand],” he recalls. “Back then, I didn't know [much] about natural wine and this whole community. It was totally new to me… but I'm pretty sure I had one of the best meals that I ever had was [at that wine bar we visited].” It wasn’t just the wine itself that resonated with Kier, but also the tight community of people involved in the niche—the makers, drinkers, and everyone in between.
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“[Food] is something that brings people together," says Kier. Photo by Patricia Baes.
Kier embraces community on a wider scale as well. The name Long Table takes after his goal of bringing people together over good food: “When I say Long Table, [I mean], everyone is welcome in the long table,” he explains. “We don't cook for one person—we cook for a lot of people. I wanna call it ‘long table’ because everyone comes into the long table [to eat]... it's such a Filipino thing.’” Consider our ways in the kitchen, he says: “We Filipinos don't cook for ourselves. We cook for everyone. We cook for like, two to three people. You don't see a Filipino eating by himself.”
Despite the distance from its Auckland roots, Long Table is very much still living its purpose at Bibio—itself a casual yet refined space where food and wine enthusiasts gather, zero pretense involved. “The whole reason why I wanna do a supper club or pop-up place is like, I want to bring people around," he explains. “To me, food has to be shared, you know. It's something that brings people together… like, when you welcome someone into your house. It's not just about the food. You give them your hospitality, you know… the first thing you ask them is, ‘Have you eaten already?’”
For Trish, food is as much a source of pleasure and fuel as it is an outlet for creativity; a medium by which stories can be passed on; and a way to connect with others.
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