Maritess De Ocampo

Tenga at Tenga at Tenga by Digamo | Photo by Jar Concengco

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Digamo

Pepper Teehankee

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781535446719Digamo.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:958.667px;display:block;height:auto" width="958.667"/>Digámo in Marikina is a new restaurant by Chef Francis Lacson offering a neo-Filipino experience </div>One can taste Filipino culinary history on a single tasting menu at the newly-opened Digámo in Marikina. This new restaurant by Chef Francis Lacson provides a neo-Filipino experience that combines Filipino food history with modern culinary artistry. Born in Mambusao, Capiz, the formative years of Francis were spent playing around the “dirty kitchens” where he served as an apprentice to his elders who prepped food for the town’s celebrations. He became a seafarer at 17, navigating the globe and using every shore leave to explore the spice markets of Morocco and food stalls around Mexico and Asia. After a hostage crisis in 2015, he returned to the one thing that felt like home: the kitchen. Francis is a multi-awarded chef and food writer and is a three-time recipient of the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award. He wants to offer his diners a “deeply personal and progressive Filipino dining experience grounded in memory, culinary history, and flavor.” Named after the Hiligaynon word digámo, which speaks not only of the act of cooking but the thoughtful “setting in order” of a shared table, the 14-seater restaurant approaches Filipino cuisine as a living, evolving chef-driven experience shaped by heritage. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781535686361Chef Francis Lacson.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="506" style="width:506px"/>Chef Francis Lacson</div>Digámo’s maiden tasting menu, “Playful Evolution,” is a sequence of dishes that traces Filipino cuisine across centuries of influence and trade from pre-colonial techniques to the legacies of Chinese trade, Spanish and American colonial histories, Japanese influence, and contemporary culinary thought. <div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/food-travel/2026/6/10/when-lechon-met-fondue-1602" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RELATED STORY: When lechon met fondue</a></div>This starts with Binabak-Ulang (river prawn), re-imagined as the classic steamed Antique delicacy called binabak as kilawin-style river prawn and its rich prawn fat and under is a bed of creamy, pounded cassava leaves infused with coconut milk, and topped with latik. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781535807946Binabak.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:404px;height:604.713px" width="404"/>Binabak-Ulang </div>Then there’s Nilupak— mashing using the traditional lusong (wooden mortar and pestle) to prepare a mixture of pounded saba (banana), palm sugar, and coconut meat on top of a crisp cassava cake, coated in nata de batuan for a Visayan tangy finish. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781535929407Nilupak at Suam.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="410" style="width:410px"/>Nilupak Suam</div>The Tenga at Tenga at Tenga is coined from the name (and textures) of ears (or tenga in Tagalog). This dish honors sugba, a pre-colonial wood firing technique that serves as the foundation of our modern Filipino barbecue. This trio features three types of &#x27;ears&#x27;—tenga ng baboy (pig’s ears), tenga ng daga (wood ear mushroom), and abalone each offering a slight resistance to the bite. This is dipped into the &#x27;bloodless&#x27; dinuguan (blood stew) made from savory corn smut (just like the Mexican huitlacoche), a fungus found in the corn of Quezon province that gives a hint of truffle flavor. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536048389Tenga at Tenga at Tenga.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="598" style="width:598px"/>Tenga at Tenga at Tenga</div>Diners explore the Visayas with linagpang, another pre-colonial technique where grilled meats and aromatics are transformed into a smoky, savory broth featuring Iloilo’s dumaraga nga manok (free-range chicken) and sinalay (smoked shrimp) from Capiz, topped with ginger-lemongrass foam and slightly sour libas leaves. The broth tops a &quot;chicken taho&quot; (custard). The Kinilaw course, he says, is “rooted in the writings of the late food anthropologist Doreen Gamboa Fernandez, this dish highlights Filipino vinegar as &#x27;liquid fire&#x27; that delicately &#x27;cooks&#x27; raw seafood without heat. We salt-cured tanigue and tossed it in a chilled 5° C sukang sasa. It rests on a silky velvety pili nut purée and finished with palapa oil (a Maranao condiment made with sakurab or white scallion and turmeric) and sili (bird’s eye chili) leaves essence.” Tamales arrived here via the Galleon Trade and Francis prepares Kalabasa (pumpkin) in two ways— first are pumpkin ribbons tossed in Bukidnon honey, unsalted butter, rice flour, and coconut oil, then steamed in banana leaves and served with burong hipon (fermented shrimp) and pickled pumpkin topped with an airy salted egg sauce. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536112469Tamales.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="608" style="width:608px"/>Tamales</div>Kulawo is an indigenous pre-colonial Southern Tagalog process infusing grated coconut with hot coals to create a smoky coconut cream that tastes like grilled meat. A smooth and velvety talong kulawo (eggplant) version by Francis is topped with burnt brown sugar, and finished with extra virgin coconut oil and served with a sweet-tangy watermelon jam to help balance the richness of and to incorporate a bit of American influence. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536162791Kulawo.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="610" style="width:610px"/>Kulawo</div>Then comes C3 inspired by the American fast-food era. This is a nod to the iconic &quot;chicken-and-spaghetti&quot; combo by Francis applies the signature techniques of that famous fried chicken to soft-shell crab, paired with lumot (cuttlefish) a la plancha cut into &quot;spaghetti&quot; shaped noodles and dressed with a rich taba ng talangka (crab tomalley) sauce and egg rice. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536222613C3.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="617" style="width:617px"/>C3</div>The next course is the Sawsawan, Serve, and Cleanser. Sawsawan or dipping sauce is very personal so they encourage you to create your own (dipping sauce). In front of you is a mixture of chopped onion with pickled chili, and calamansi juice. Francis adds that “On your table is toyo Malabon—called toyo because of its color but it&#x27;s actually patis made only in Malabon.” Serve is “Inspired by over a hundred panciterias of Tuguegarao City, we have reimagined this classic dish into three parts. We have reimagined this classic by using hand-cut miki noodles sautéed in beef tallow and smoky etag (Cordilleran cured pork). You will find at the bottom a carrot miso puree and on-top are cold-smoked carabeef (carabao beef), lacto-fermented Baguio pechay, braised patola, shiitake mushrooms and poached egg. Use your spoon and fork to cut down through the pancit, pairing each bite with your sawsawan.” The chef describes the Cleanser as the soup that acts as a finisher of the dish. The last main course is Sarsa Confusion, which resolves the historical blurring of three Spanish-influenced stews by isolating their defining techniques. The dish features three distinct deconstructed components: Menudo that features confited Batangas pork kurobuta cheeks with pinuneg crumble and red bell pepper confit; their version of Kaldereta traditionally cooked in what the Spaniards called “Caldera”  but Filipinos called it “Caldero”—slow cooked in a cauldron in their version of goat meat stew is braised, deep-fried goat shoulder meat finished with kesong puti green pea puree; and Mechado, derived from the Spanish word mecha (wick) for larding lean beef with pork fat and Digámo uses Bukidnon beef kalitiran larded with pork fat and served with calamansi gelee. This is accompanied with arroz valenciana, their version of Spanish Ilonggo-fiesta dish with malagkit (sticky) rice, turmeric, Chinese sausage, and shrimp. <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536358155Sarsa Confusion.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="629" style="width:629px"/>Sarsa Confusion</div>The palate cleanse is a Filipino childhood favorite: Iskrambol. Francis uses guyabano topped with asin sa buy-o and cream served with grilled Bukidnon pineapples. The finale is Five Stages of Coconut a coconut pianono filled with minatamis na malakanin, butong cream, lahing sorbetes, ungol tuile, and sagbay luwag (mid-mature coconut) and sago (tapioca pearls) sauce, all rounded out by grilled binatog (buttered corn with sugared coconut). <div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1781536447378Five Stages of Coconut.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="613" style="width:613px"/>Five Stages of Coconut</div>Happy Endings is something everyone welcomes. The dinner really ends when that nostalgic stainless steel baunan or lunch box is brought out. It is filled with Bulacan’s pastillas de leche made from fresh carabao’s milk, Iloilo’s baye-baye (ground and toasted pinipig or corn and pounded with young coconut) made of pounded pinipig, and Sulu daral or rice crepe filled with salted hinti or sweet coconut meat.<div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/food-travel/2026/5/31/how-gallery-by-chele-turns-heirloom-rice-into-a-journey-through-the-philippines-1946" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RELATED STORY: More than a tasting menu: How Gallery by Chele turns heirloom rice into a journey through the Philippines</a></div>Each course of the tasting menu draws from research, regional traditions, and lived memory, transforming familiar references into refined expressions. Francis shares, “Digámo is a longer table. It is a place for better and deeper conversations about Filipino food. It comes from the desire to honor where we come from while allowing our cuisine to move, question, and grow.”  <div>Photo credits: All photos by Jar Concengco</div><div>Digámo is located at GCN Building, 240 Narra Street, Marikina Heights, Marikina City. For reservations, go to <a href="https://www.digamo.ph/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">digamo.ph</a>. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>

At Digámo, Chef Francis Lacson reimagines Filipino culinary history through a creative dining experience that blends heritage and modern culinary artistry. Pepper Teehankee explores the restaurant’s debut menu, "Playful Evolution."

At Digámo, Chef Francis Lacson reimagines Filipino culinary history through a creative dining experience that blends heritage and modern culinary artistry. Pepper Teehankee explores the restaurant’s debut menu, " Playful Evolution ."

'Playful Evolution' at Digámo

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'Playful Evolution' at Digámo

Pepper Teehankee

Published June 15, 2026 11:24 PM PHT

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Updated June 16, 2026 06:44 PM PHT

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Digámo

Chef Francis Lacson

Neo-Filipino Cuisine

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