Kitchen Talk with AICA's Chef Dominique

CEBU, Philippines - Chef Dominique Mabugat lives and breathes the culinary life. She has been educated and immersed in the vibrant restaurant culture in the US and is now actively mentoring students on how to run their own kitchens.

Born to a Cebuano father and Kapampangan mother, Chef Dominique grew up in a household that delights in good food, dining out and cooking—an environment that helped plant the seed of her passion in all things culinary.

She started enrolling in cooking classes when she was in grade school. “My mom, after seeing that I was really into cooking early on, would enroll me in Sylvia Reynoso cooking classes. Then, after school, I would wait and watch cooking shows instead of kiddie programs. I guess I had it in me. That’s how it all started,” said Dominique.

Right after high school, she went the traditional route by getting a degree in Child Psychology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

But her unfinished business with the culinary arts, like a nagging sensation, could no longer be ignored.

For three years, Dominique went to the U.S. and studied at the Culinary Institute of America. Her first resto experience was via an externship at the prestigious fine-dining spot, Bouley Restaurant, at TriBeCa run by celebrated chef David Bouley.

“Under Chef Bouley, I really learned a lot as I was pouring 13 hours a day, six days a week,” she recalled.

But the physical and mental stress of the job took a toll on her. “I was already asking myself ‘what am I doing here?’ After graduation, I got tired of the kitchen... I got phobia,” she shared. She then moved to a job that placed her in the frontlines, instead—as restaurant manager of the Leaping Frog Cafe in Central Park Zoo.

Still, as they say, you may take the girl out of a kitchen, but never the kitchen—or at least the memory of the natural high that one acquires from such a bustling atmosphere—out of the girl. “I got bored, and I missed the adrenalin of being in the kitchen,” she admits.

She became the line cook for the Michelin-starred The Modern, the fine-dining French-American resto of the Museum of Modern Art, and stayed there until December 2005, when she felt it was finally time to come home.

Coming home, nevertheless, redefined her priorities. Initially, she had every intention of following the conventional course of anyone who went to culinary school by opening her own restaurant and manning her own kitchen. That plan, however, fell through. Her resume was sent to the Academy for International Culinary Arts, and with her impressive credentials, she was immediately taken in as consultant and lecturer.

“Everybody who studied culinary arts wants to open their own restaurant. That’s what I wanted also, and I was going to, but it didn’t work out. At the back of my mind, I also wanted to teach. I had education units, after all, with my college degree. Then a friend gave my resume to AICA. That’s how it started for me as a teacher.”

On teaching, she shared: “I really enjoy it because you can cook and at the same time, share what you learn. The fulfillment is really different. You’re kind of forming people, who from zero knowledge and zero skills, they would learn to do all these things. I like the feeling to have been able to help them do that.”

Now, AICA is opening its Cebu branch at The Gallery in Mabolo this May, with Chef Dominique appointed as school director—a career development that she has embraced wholeheartedly as Cebu has always been her second home. “My father and his siblings grew up in Bantayan. We’ve always come here, and I speak and understand a little Cebuano.”

As in their Manila school, the Cebu branch also offers “a 12-month diploma course, which is patterned after the American curriculum. It’s very concise, but when they leave here, they’re ready to work already. We also have recreational courses. Our programs, in other words, try to meet the different requirements of individuals who want to be professionals in the food service and hospitality industry. There’s theoretical learning, practical training, and actual experience with our programs.”

AICA would be the fourth addition to the three existing culinary schools in Cebu—and she doesn’t mind the competition. “I think there’s really a market here, even with the existence of three schools already. Cebu needs more because there are really good restaurants here, but they all have foreign chefs. In Manila, Filipinos are the ones who own and run the fine-dining restaurants. Cebuanos have to believe in themselves, that if they have the right training, they too can do it. Let’s love our own.”

“I love the dining scene here and it really has potential for growth,” said Dominique who, if not attending to school concerns or not cooking organic-inspired dishes for friends or family, is keeping her plate full by checking out restaurants, tasting their specialty cuisine and experiencing the service.

Chef Dominque also has great faith in the Filipino’s potential to be at par with the brightest names in the culinary world. Citing the example of the White House’s Filipina executive chef Cristeta Comerford, she said that our taste buds are like custom-built for the job. “Our palates are very diverse because we’ve been under different culinary influences—from American, Spanish, to Chinese, etc. Because of that, we can adapt to different flavors, and if we work in a hotel, or in a resto, we can keep up.” Of course, for anybody who wants to be a chef, it is virtually a prerequisite for landing a job in a first-rate ktichen to have a culinary degree. But the education should not end once you earn your diploma or your toque. Cooking, professionally at that, is one dynamic passion. That’s why Chef Dominique’s all-important ingredient for culinary success is for one to accumulate as much experience as he/she can—in and out of the kitchen.

“It’s not an easy profession, even as it might be easy to look at, say on TV. A lot of chefs had to really work hard to earn the title chef. You have to get a lot of experience because it is a craft as much as it is an art.”

   The Academy for International Culinary Arts (Cebu Branch) is located at The Gallery, Juan Luna St. Cor. Golam Drive, Mabolo with tel. no. 032-316-4828. ? (FREEMAN NEWS)