Claude Tayag is an accomplished artist, writer, a handy chef and an advocate of Filipino cuisine most of his adult life. His best-selling books include FOOD TOUR, a collection of his food and travel essays from his column in the Philippine Star, and LINAMNAM – Eating One’s Way Around the Philippines, which he co-authored with his wife Mary Ann Quioc. Both won the Best Philippine Culinary Travel Guide in the Madrid-based GOURMAND WORLD COOKBOOK AWARDS 2007 and 2011, respectively. He is also a co-author and the food stylist of the seminal cookbook KULINARYA – A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine.

 

Tayag is one of those rare breed of “food missionaries” who literally puts his foot where his mouth is, so to speak. Together with his wife, they run the by-reservation-only Bale Dutung Restaurant in Angeles City, Pampanga, serving sumptuous traditional Pampango spread, and more recently opened Downtown 1956 Café, at the Quad in Nepo Center in the same city, serving Tayag’s take on Filipino comfort foods. They have hosted meals for such international luminaries like Anthony Bourdain (author, TV host), Tom Parker Bowles (food editor, Esquire UK), Simon Majumbar (author Eat My Globe), Australian chef/TV host Peter Kurovita and many other local and foreign celebrities.