The tito and tita’s guide to Abi Balingit

How do you get to know a culinary star like Filipino American baker Abi Balingit, the 2024 James Beard Emerging Voice Award winner?

You can start with some background research: Her parents moved to San Jose, California, from the Philippines, and she went to UC Berkeley. She isn’t a full-time chef, believe it or not; Balingit, 29, works in the music industry.

The “about” section of The Dusky Kitchen, the blog she started in 2020, says that she started baking when she was 13 before growing frustrated with how much time and energy it could take. Her love-hate relationship with baking took a turn when she hauled her KitchenAid mixer across the country from her birthplace to New York.

There, baking for her became about experimenting for friends in her dimly lit, “dusky” Brooklyn apartment, where a single window’s faint sunlight fueled her passion for transforming simple ingredients into delicious treats, sans fancy tools or the pressure to get it perfect.

Her book Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed, features not just the recipes that have made her a rising star in the culinary world and on social media, too — Adobo Chocolate Chip Cookies, Ube Macapuno Molten Lava Cake, Halo-Halo Baked Alaska and more — but also essays on her Filipino American heritage, on growing up in the States, but having family back home in Pampanga.

If you’re lucky enough to be a journalist, you may be able to interview her. I was at Chef Kalel Chan’s Lobby 385 in San Juan last week to meet Abi ahead of her menu collab with the upscale yet cozy eatery inspired by hotel lobbies.

In between tasting courses crafted by the masterful Chef Chan — including an incredible 28-day dry aged T-bone steak made from hybrid Angus and Wagyu beef, served with red wine salt, peppery yuzu paste and sides — Balingit flitted between tables, answering questions about her whirlwind journey from pandemic blogger to a representative of Filipino cuisine and culture on the world stage.

I joked that Filipinos who had never even heard of James Beard have suddenly become experts on culinary awards because one of our own had won it. But, isn’t that a lot of pressure on a young Millennial’s shoulders?

“I feel a lot of pressure and burnout...[but] I feel like you just have to push through, and still do it even if you’re afraid to do it,” she said.

She spoke of experiencing impostor syndrome, where someone who has accomplished much feels like they may not deserve their success.

“Being on a panel with people who have been writing for decades, who have been doing their craft for so long, I sometimes feel like I don’t have a place in it,” Balingit adds.

These are modest words from someone who has achieved so much in such a short span of time, but I would bet that many young people who have accomplished anything in this age of light-speed-social-media-hyperfocus have felt alarmed by how quickly things have changed. Still, Balingit knows her work is important and extends far beyond the walls of her dusky kitchen.

“But people do look up to me to keep pushing the conversation about Filipino food forward, so it’s about rising to the occasion,” she said.

The Filipino of it all

And that brings me to another way to learn about a celebrity — the most stereotypically and delightfully Filipino way: by asking her kamag-anak (relatives)!

I was looking for a place to sit at Lobby 385’s elegant and sun-lit second floor, and instead of ending up with other members of the press, I was invited by two women and a gentleman to join them. It turns out they were not the experienced food critics I had surmised they were. They were Tito Tan and Tita Tess, Abi’s uncle and aunt, and Tita Beth, Tess’ sister, here to support their pamangkin’s (niece or nephew) event and discuss their upcoming trip to their farm up north.

The event was transformed from a bit of coverage into a reunion with extended family, especially with Abi joining us for a few bites between interviews. Over deliciously creamy bacalao croquettes topped with prosciutto and potato pave, we learned that Tita Beth knows a distant cousin of mine from New Jersey. When the steak arrived, I joked about this being my red meat cheat-day and exchanged health concerns with Tita Beth. Tito Tan had had a fall not too long ago, but he’s looking great!

But what dominated the conversation, of course, was how proud they all were of Abi. They spoke of how the James Beard Award was a well-deserved recognition for all her hard work popularizing Filipino delicacies like ube to a wider and pickier audience.

“What I admire about Abi is her humility and confidence,” Tita Beth said, also making sure I didn’t forget to report that Abi was heavily involved in community building in New York during the pandemic by donating the proceeds of her bake sales to mutual aid organizations.

Tita Tess hoped that Abi’s bravery in facing a sometimes-harsh world with her talent and dedication might encourage a younger cousin in the family to visit the Philippines and reconnect with his roots. She was also keen to dispel any notions that the pressure Abi feels about representing the Philippines might cause her to wilt in the limelight.

“Seeing her, since she was born, and to become the person she is now, her drive... now, it’s her time to shine,” she said.

“She thinks out of this world!” said Tito Tan, who also reminded me — as he did everyone he met — that Abi was his niece. I couldn’t agree more, as who else could have come up with the recipe for a Baked Alaska Halo Halo?

Her menu collab at Lobby 385, running for the next month, highlights her uncanny ability to interpret traditional Filipino treats in a way that makes them feel like they, like her, grew up in the States. Her tsokolate pandesal bread pudding is comforting, nostalgic and just the right amount of sweet and toasty. The ube macapuno molten lava cake blends an already-mainstream American dessert ingredient with something that could be a sleeper hit in coming years.

Set against the backdrop of this lovely restaurant that felt perfectly-suited to a big gathering, I couldn’t help but think of how my own Filipino-American family members constantly support each other from either side of the Pacific Ocean. We let each other know when someone gets a new job, and everyone is updated on how one tito or another is recovering from their health scare.

For Abi, anyone who has seen her achievements so far can say that she’s excelling in the culinary world, but I’ll trust Tito Tan, Tita Tess and Tita Beth more than anyone when they say that there are more great things coming for her.