‘Have you eaten yet?’ 11 restaurants shaping the Filipino food golden age in LA

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Filipinos often show their love with the simple question: “Kumain ka na?” — Tagalog for “Have you eaten yet?” This is another way of asking, “Are you being taken care of?”

Since the days of Little Manila in the 1920s, Filipino food in Los Angeles answered that question quietly, feeding a hard-working community without much recognition. But that’s changed in the past decade, according to Eli Simon, COO of the former ghost kitchen turned lauded restaurant Manila Inasal.

The past decade has been marked by the rise of a new class of eateries led by Filipino chefs honoring the soul of traditional Filipino cuisine with modern flair.

“What’s changed in recent years is a new generation of Filipino and Filipino-American chefs who are approaching the cuisine with more intention,” Simon told The LA Local. “They’re telling clearer stories, refining how dishes are presented and helping people see the full range of what Filipino food can be.”

In 2016, the late L.A. Times food critic Jonathan Gold noticed a “Pinoy cooking boom in Los Angeles.” It seemed that Filipino cuisine was in the zeitgeist on television with Chef Sheldon Simeon wowing viewers on Top Chef and in L.A. with Chad and Chase Valencia’s pop-up in Chinatown called Lasa, which Gold praised for a menu that “vibrates with the flavors of the Philippines.” 

What followed was a pandemic-era generation of Filipino chefs noticing an opportunity to launch something new. Home kitchens became James Beard Award-recognized restaurants. And a cuisine that had long fed its own community almost exclusively began to feed everyone else too.

What once was seen as “exotic” has now broken into the mainstream. Even Trader Joe’s has embraced Filipino food with a frozen adobo dinner and ube-flavored everything — while causing online debates on the culture’s commodification. 

A vibrant spread of Filipino staples at Manila Inasal, including grilled inasal chicken, garlic rice and an array of traditional side dishes.

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Courtesy Manila Inasal

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“Our food is for the Filipino American longing to connect with their roots,” Manila Inasal executive chef Natalia Moran told The LA Local. “It’s for the American who has never tried Filipino [food].”

The reasons Filipino food took longer to break through are complicated, according to Moran. She pointed to colonization — the Philippines was occupied by Spain, the United States and Japan — and the way that history shaped Filipinos’ own relationship to their culture. 

“We had the mentality that anything imported was better than locally made,” she said. “We Filipinos had to see the beauty in ourselves, in our own culture, before we could showcase our culture, our identity to the world.”

Now they are. There are nearly a half-million Filipinos in Los Angeles County — the largest concentration outside the Philippines — and their chefs are cooking with a confidence and creativity that feels long overdue.

Today, there are dozens of high-quality Filipino chefs and eateries all over L.A. County. The restaurants below represent a small slice of the vanguard of that movement. 

From decades-old neighborhood anchors to the new wave of chef-driven concepts, here’s a guide to some of the best Filipino spots across L.A. 

Kuya Lord

Lord Llera opened Kuya Lord out of his home during the pandemic, feeding neighbors before the concept grew into a James Beard Award-winning brick-and-mortar on Melrose. Llera told The LA Local he wants non-Filipinos to discover Filipino food and crave it like Chinese, Thai or Japanese cuisine.

“Because I am doing Southern Filipino cuisine, it’s also a way of educating fellow Filipinos about other Filipino regional dishes,” he said.

Representing the Quezon province in the Philippines, Chef Llera offers distinct flavors from the region that can even be new to Filipinos in Los Angeles, serving super-savory proteins like the popular fatty and rich lucenachon — a hybrid of lechon and porchetta — alongside pancit and garlic rice.

Manila Inasal

A signature dish, the crab tortang talong reimagines the classic Filipino eggplant omelet by topping it with succulent crab meat and bright roe.

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Courtesy Manila Inasal

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Manila Inasal began in the Philippines in 2020, when Chef Moran and her siblings cooked for first responders during the pandemic. It quickly grew into a restaurant in its namesake city before moving to Los Angeles in 2023.

“I love how vibrant and diverse the culinary scene is here in L.A.,” Moran said. “There are authentic spots that are amazing, but there are also places that offer a hip and new take on dishes.”

Being exposed to the diverse culinary landscape of Los Angeles has enabled Chef Moran to reimagine traditional Filipino dishes. 

“It has broadened my understanding of which flavors can and cannot go together [and] which Filipino flavors go with other items that can be found here,” Moran explained. “The Los Angeles culture has exposed me to a whole color palette I can now use to create something delicious and interesting.”

Manila Inasal, which loosely translates to “Manila Grill,” roots itself in the savory, salty and tangy flavor profiles of the Philippines. In addition to their take on laing focaccia, joy can be found in the crispy and fatty lechon sisig, while beef short rib adobo represents the homeland proudly. Veggie versions of both dishes are just as satisfying.

Chef Moran also ups the ante with the traditional tortang talong by topping a thick eggplant omelet with dollops of calamansi aioli, crab meat and tobiko.

Sampa

Blending Filipino and Mexican influences, the kare-kare tamales feature peanut-based flavors wrapped in traditional corn husks.

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Courtesy Sampa

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Filipino food has not traditionally been presented as “haute cuisine,” but restaurants like Sampa have subverted expectations, offering refined twists on tradition with a dash of swagger. 

Sampa — short for sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines — took the long road to a permanent home. Chef Josh Espinosa and co-owner Jenny Valles launched as a delivery concept during the pandemic, staged pop-ups at the Pali Hotel in West Hollywood and Cafe Caravan in Los Feliz, and held a lunch residency at Kaviar before landing in downtown L.A.’s Arts District at the end of 2024.

Espinosa and Valles are constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to being bold and inventive with Filipino cuisine. The ever-changing Sampa brunch menu items include a chicken and pandan waffle, bangus benedict, and biscuits and longanisa gravy. Dinner brings octopus adobo, lamb kaldereta tortellini, crab fat fried rice and a plate of pancit topped with crispy duck. The kare kare tamales have become a standout.

A modern classic: Sampa’s longganisa spaghetti pairs the sweetness of Filipino sausage with a rich, savory sauce and floral garnishes.

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Courtesy Sampa

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“I think what makes the Los Angeles Filipino food scene different is that this city is a hub for creatives — people constantly pushing ideas forward,” Espinosa told The LA Local. “Being surrounded by that energy naturally influences how we cook and create.”

Espinosa said he grew up embarrassed to bring Filipino food in Tupperware to school. Today he’s working to make the unfamiliar — including dishes like isaw, or chicken intestines — approachable without losing their soul. “My goal is to present these dishes in a way that feels familiar and accessible,” he said.

“Food is a love language in Filipino culture because, historically, many families in the Philippines do not have much, so cooking became a meaningful way to show love and appreciation with what you have,” Espinosa said. “At the end of the day, my goal is to tell my story as a Filipino American and to share that with the world.”

Valles said that Filipinos take great pride in family and tradition. “Food is a vessel that keeps memories alive.”

Mekeni Pinoy’s Pride

The draw at Mekeni Pinoy’s Pride is the buffet — a weekend breakfast spread and a Wednesday dinner service, both featuring around two dozen dishes and massive lines around the block. So reservations are highly recommended. 

The food is rooted in Pampanga, billed as the culinary capital of the Philippines. Show up on a weekday for à la carte service and order the oxtail kare-kare, pork belly adobo and the seafood sinigang. 

HiFi Kitchen

Pork Sisig from HiFi Kitchen features sizzling roast pork, finely chopped and tossed with onions, peppers and a house soy-vinaigrette, topped with fresh cabbage, chili oil and house crema.

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Erick Galindo

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The LA Local

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HiFi Kitchen is a nod to both high fidelity audio and Historic Filipinotown — both loves of founder Justin Foronda. Chef Foronda was born and raised in the neighborhood and is a former b-boy, registered nurse and musician.

He told The LA Local that he’d grown frustrated that HiFi felt invisible compared to Little Tokyo or Koreatown, so he opened HiFi, installing a mural that declares: “This is Historic Filipinotown.” 

The menu reads, as Foronda calls it, “proudly Filipino Angeleno.” It features rice bowls, silogs, tacos built on tocino pastor and vegan riffs on classics like veggie sisig. His more recent creation — a stuffed pastry he calls a “Filipino puffy taco,” inspired by the bright orange empanadas of Ilocos — is as Filipino-Angeleno as it gets. 

L.A. Rose Café

Established by Lemuel Balagot in 1982, L.A. Rose Café is a longtime neighborhood anchor that feels, in the best possible way, like eating at your tita’s or aunt’s house.

For the last four decades, it has served a solid, consistently good menu of Filipino dishes. Portions are generous. The lechon — Cebuano-style roasted pig — and a pork kidney and intestine soup called dinuguan rival those of restaurants in the Philippines itself. It is also one of the best places in the city for traditional halo-halo, or shaved ice dessert.

San & Wolves

A typical allergen-free dish at San & Wolves.

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Isabella Kulkarni

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The LA Local

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San & Wolves is Filipino-owned vegan bakery in Long Beach doing what most places won’t bother to attempt: recreating the childhood classics — ube halaya, pandan pudding — without any dairy. 

Founders Kym Estrada and Arvin Torres started the bakery to maintain their vegan diet without giving up the flavors they grew up with, and the results speak for themselves. Worth the drive.

Kusina Filipina

Kusina Filipina is in a banquet space in Eagle Rock that has the atmosphere of a divey comedy club — but the food, not the vibes, is the real star. From menu staples like pancit and crunchy pork sisig drizzled with calamansi juice to larger dishes like chicken adobo and a super-crispy pata that smells like pounded peppercorns, the menu is full of hits.

Neri’s

Neri’s is a prime place for takeout, but even more popular for their kamayan — the communal, hands-on smorgasbord served on banana leaves. First opened in 1984 in Historic Filipinotown, Neri’s is now a small storefront in a Koreatown retail mall on the corner of Wilshire and Alexandria. 

Aside from nutty kare kare and golden-crusted crispy pata, Neri’s kamayan dinner — which requires 48-hour advance reservations — is gigantic feasts with a never-ending bed of rice and nearly a dozen dishes eaten by hand, with set menus that range from grilled pork belly and pork skewers to garlic shrimp and boneless bangus.

The Park’s Finest

A sampling of the Filipino BBQ from The Park’s Finest in Echo Park.

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Courtesy The Park’s Finest

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Park’s Finest started as backyard cookouts in Echo Park — the neighborhood that raised founder Johneric Concordia — before transitioning first into a catering company and now one of L.A.’s most popular BBQ joints. 

Concordia’s father, a Filipino American immigrant who served in the Navy, taught his sons the basics; the menu still honors that lineage, with the San Pablo pulled pork named for the family’s home province and Mama Leah’s coconut beef named after his grandmother.

The hot links are made with sweet Filipino sausage, the cornbread is mixed with rice flour and baked on a banana leaf, and the signature sauce is built on vinegar, garlic and chili — a direct nod to adobo. The coconut beef is the move: 16-hour smoked chuck stewed in coconut cream and fish sauce until it falls apart. 

Gerry’s Grill

Gerry’s Grill began as a single restaurant in Quezon City’s legendary culinary hub Tomas Morato. It has grown into an international franchise with multiple locations in Southern California, a spot in Qatar and one in Singapore — a city so serious about food it has hawker centers on the UNESCO heritage list.

The Artesia outpost makes a strong case for why. The menu hits all the classics — pork and bangus sisig, sinigang, lechon kawali, crispy pata — served in a room that gets loud and celebratory on weekend nights, with a live band included. 

The standout dishes are the grilled squid and the crispy kare-kare, and don’t skip the halo-halo.

Erick Galindo contributed to this report.