Dimples and Carlo Blanco of Canto. Photographed by Sela Gonzales
Baguio’s Gastro x Art Crawl invites 11 restaurants to open their space for artists to showcase their work alongside a special menu infused with Cordilleran flavors.
When we think of culture and heritage, we might sometimes feel that it is situated in the past. In Baguio, however, culture has been a means to move forward.
After joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Arts in 2017, the Creative Baguio City Council was inspired to hold the IBAGIW Festival to continue uplifting the local artistic community. In recent iterations, the month-long celebration included art exhibitions, workshops, and bazaars that lent a more accessible platform for the locals to appreciate the creative spirit of the city and the larger Cordillera region.
Venus Tan, co-chairman of the Creative Baguio City Council, has been making an effort to promote this culture to people outside of the city as well. “People are being driven to the city of Baguio […] and a lot of them are coming for the restaurants to eat, and [this popularity] is being driven by social media,” Tan observes. From that insight comes a new addition to this year’s festivities: The IBAGIW Gastro x Art Crawl.
The Gastro x Art Crawl is an initiative where 11 homegrown restaurants open their spaces to showcase works from local artists while also inviting tourists to sample a special menu exclusively created for the festival.
For the curatorial team behind the Gastro Art Creative Crawl consisting of artists Rocky Acofo Cajigan, Mervine Aquino, RJ Brian Wangang, Adrian Mangili, Herson Arcega, and Faye Olayo, pioneering an initiative such as this was a new challenge. With this year’s festival theme of “Inquisitive. Disruptive. Creative.,” they were able to pair artists to exhibit in restaurants, as well as set up the larger Naked City festival exhibit in the Baguio City Convention Center, for this vibrant month-long display.
According to Olayo, a key curator in the Gastro x Art crawl, the curation process became enjoyable because of the collaboration between the artists, the restaurants, and their curatorial team who are all part of the larger Baguio creative community. “Restaurants had taken a new role of being a gallery space and it was interesting to play with these spaces and find the best way for the artworks and the space to interact,” she says.
Cordilleran Fusion
What makes the crawl so exciting is each spot’s ability to incorporate Cordilleran ingredients and techniques into dishes that still fit each restaurant’s style. For example, Chef Waya Araos of Gypsy Café’s worldly culinary knowledge transforms the Pinikpikan into a Rillette, Sonoko Tamaguchi’s Japanese heritage meets the Cordilleras with Chaya’s Pork Chashu Kinuday, and Donna Aldana’s pastry precision births the Pinuneg and Pulled Pork Galette de Rois.
Other inventive dishes from the Baguio restaurants include Amare’s Ube Pizza, The Gallery’s Beef Stew with Etag, and L’Atelier Du Grain’s Rhubarb Cheesecake with Sagada Orange Zest Crust.
“We have to evolve somehow,” Dimples Blanco of Canto Bogchi Joint says. With her husband Carlo and their in-house chef Oyo David, they’ve built a menu in dialogue with the team and local businesses. Their Ube Cheesecake showered with a generous helping of salty cheese on top made use of products from the Baguio Dairy Farm.
The Cordillera region in general is a major agricultural producer, supplying a large portion of the vegetables to the rest of the country. Diego de Rivera, the chef consultant at Rebel Bakehouse, wanted to utilize this along with culinary techniques inspired by the region.
“There’s an intriguing relationship between the vegetables and cured meats,” he says. “On one hand, there’s freshness and abundance; on the other, the need to preserve prized ingredients through techniques like smoking and utilizing every part of the pig creates something like blood sausage. It’s a privilege to be able to use ingredients of this quality on a daily basis.”
In Canto, Rebel Bakehouse, and the rest of the restaurants in the city, a collective appreciation for produce of their own is made apparent. The ingredients don’t have to travel so far, ensuring that each dish they serve is made fresh.
“Sana marami pa ang magtangkilik ng products na kami. Because it’s the only way we will grow. […] Ang daming magagaling [dito sa Baguio],” Blanco emphasizes. [“We hope even more people will buy our products because it’s the only way we will grow. There are so many who are good in Baguio.”]
Vignettes of the Region
Aside from the special menus, each restaurant doubles as a gallery, inviting diners to appreciate and purchase work from local artists who were able to participate in this year’s crawl.
“I think the artworks that are displayed in the crawl are works that tell stories, they’re stories of where the artists are from, stories of lived and imagined experiences,” Olayo shares. She draws attention to Ibaloy painter Roland Bay-an’s work depicting rural day-to-day life in the Curious Cafe Co. at G1 Lodge, the beauty and strength found in Marlyn de Lazo Bulayo’s paintings capturing Cordilleran life at L’Atelier Du Grain, and Irene Bawer-Bimuyag’s intricate embroidery and textile work displayed in Le Chef at The Manor.
“The crafts are actors and witnesses in our cultures,” Olayo adds. She particularly points out Pinsel’s experimentation with natural dyes that reveal patterns inspired by nature, the local narratives captured in Leonard Aguinaldo’s rubber and wood cut prints, and Rovilyn Mayat-An’s woven handicrafts drawing inspiration from her ancient Benguet lineage.
Dulthe Munar’s home pieces cobbled from wood and spare parts imagines a new life for objects that might have been thrown away, while the colorful and textured impasto works from Hermie Bruno depicting memories from his childhood are hung in contrast with Cara Bruno’s charcoal paintings with women and flowers as her muse.
Twenty-five Baguio artists and art groups found a platform in these 11 homegrown restaurants. In exhibiting pieces coming from artists across multiple mediums, a wide perspective of the Cordillera region also unfolds.
“Culture defines the character of the city,” says Venus Tan. “The expressions come out because of our cultural heritage.” Driven by local tourists’ curiosity for regional gastronomy and with the wealth of the city’s rich heritage, this year’s IBAGIW creative festival only demonstrates the strong momentum that the city’s culture has in pulling the city forward.
