One spoonful of this Biñan tiramisu

There is a peculiar problem with eating your way through Metro Manila’s food scene in the age of social media. Trending establishments are always synonymous with soundbites claiming them to be the best thing they’ve experienced. Every week brings a new cafe, a new pastry, a new dessert served in an Instagrammable container and accompanied by a content creator’s solemn declaration that nothing else comes close. Some of these claims survive contact with reality. Others crumble rather quickly.

In early 2025, having developed an appetite for tiramisu that was becoming difficult to justify financially, I began a personal tour of dessert shops promising to satisfy it. I went around Metro Manila, sampling tubs of the Italian classic. Many were disappointing. A few were perfectly acceptable, which is not quite the same thing as being memorable.

Then, somewhat embarrassingly for the capital’s considerable food scene, I found what I had been looking for in my hometown of Biñan, Laguna.

Buon Studios and Cafe is a modest, welcoming place whose tiramisu has earned an enthusiastic local following. Sometimes, the answer is not in another neighborhood of Metro Manila. Sometimes, it is down the road from home.

An unconventional route to the kitchen

The word buon is Italian for “good,” as in buon giorno, or good morning. It is an appropriately generous name for a cafe founded by longtime couple Aron Rellosa and Francine Tapaoan, whose route into the food business was anything but conventional.

Rellosa studied aviation technology at the National Aviation Academy of the Philippines. Tapaoan studied violin at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila. Neither was an obvious candidate for running a cafe built around an Italian dessert that had yet to establish much of a following in their corner of Laguna. But the pair made it happen.

Their tiramisu began during the pandemic in 2020, when they started experimenting with food. What began as a side hustle selling tubs to friends and relatives gradually became something more serious. The couple spent three years tinkering with the recipe.

“At first, we were just making something we enjoyed and sharing it with people we knew,” Rellosa said. “We never imagined that something we started at home would eventually become the foundation of our own cafe.”

Adjusting to the local palate

There was, however, a practical problem. Tiramisu was not exactly a household staple in Laguna at the time, and turning an unfamiliar dessert into a viable business required faith in the local palate.

“We knew we wanted to pursue it, but we also understood that people here might not be familiar with tiramisu,” Tapaoan said. “We had to be willing to introduce it to them and learn from their reactions.”

According to the two, their customers preferred tiramisu without alcohol. Traditional recipes often incorporate dark rum or Marsala wine, but the couple found that leaving it out made more sense for their clientele. The result was a Filipino-Italian interpretation of the dessert, built around coffee and cream.

“People have different preferences, and we realized there was no reason to insist on making it a certain way just because that was the traditional approach,” Rellosa said. “We wanted something that would appeal to our customers without losing what makes tiramisu special.”

The cafe and studio opened in 2025 after the couple spent time selling at private events. They credit fellow entrepreneurs and the growing coffee community in southern Metro Manila and Laguna for helping them navigate unfamiliar territory.

Their tiramisu continued to evolve. The version they settled on uses strong espresso to soak the ladyfingers, offsetting the richness of its mascarpone cream and vanilla. The layers are assembled carefully and chilled for four to six hours.

“We kept adjusting the recipe because we knew it could be better,” Rellosa said. “Even when people already liked it, we still paid attention to what they were telling us.”

The couple was also open to criticism when they started. They offered free drinks to guests of Tapaoan’s music students in exchange for honest feedback. Free coffee can attract almost anyone, but getting people to return requires rather more than generosity.

“We didn’t want people to tell us what they thought we wanted to hear,” Tapaoan said. “If something needed improvement, we wanted to know.”

Signature drinks with local flair

Today, Buon has expanded beyond tiramisu into specialty coffee drinks named after Philippine destinations. Each has its own personality, and some are more adventurous than the usual combination of espresso and flavored syrup.

Vayang pairs pistachio cream with sea salt foam. Majayjay combines espresso with banana puree and oat milk, finished with banana slices topped with torched brown sugar. The effect is somewhere between a Korean banana milk drink and a coffee shop dessert.

Calaguas combines lychee, citrus, flavored tonic water, and Vietnamese Arabica coffee, balancing fruitiness against the coffee’s assertive notes. Malinao pairs matcha with coconut water, taming the tea’s bitterness while lending it a refreshing quality.

“We wanted the menu to feel connected to places people know and love,” Rellosa said. “Coffee gives us a lot of room to experiment, so we try to find combinations that surprise people but still make sense when they take that first sip.”

The drinks reflect a business finding new ways to distinguish itself without losing sight of the product that brought customers through the door.

The key to consistency

For Rellosa, the lesson has been to remain invested in the work, even when running a business requires constant adjustments.

“You have to love what you’re doing,” he said. “Malalaman at malalaman ng mga tao na di mo gusto ginagawa mo (People will inevitably know if you don’t like what you are doing). You have to learn to adjust on the fly.”

“Consistency is the key for maintaining and doing a good business,” Tapaoan added.

Consistency, much like a properly made tiramisu, depends on getting the layers right and giving them enough time to come together.

And if Buon Studios and Cafe is any indication, Biñan may have a few more good things worth discovering.