This Love Month, romantic love isn’t the only form we celebrate; we also honor platonic love, familial love, and self-love. We recognize the love for nature, community, and pets—and most especially, the love for one’s passion.
We’ve all heard the saying, “The way to someone’s heart is through their stomach,” and for celebrated Cebuano Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou, it couldn’t be truer. As the trailblazer behind the integrated media community Simpol.ph, his journey began with a simple love of cooking for his loved ones. For him, love is more than just cooking for one’s pleasure; it’s “cooking as a form of servitude”.
Born out of affection and good food, Chef Tatung opens up about this philosophy and the story of this kind of love in a special conversation with PAGEONE.
A little boy with a big heart for food
In his memory, Chef Tatung’s family gatherings as a child were always centered around food. Held at his grandparents’ house, his eyes would often roam around their kitchen, where his grandma, mom, and aunt could be found prepping and cooking the meals he and his family loved. From being an observer and enjoyer of delicious food, he learned to mingle with the women who would become his pillars in life. For a little boy like him, the kitchen became a playground filled with cherished memories.
“I’d find myself mingling with everyone and trying to help out so, at a very early age, I was really exposed to cooking. I was exposed to good food; food that was prepared from scratch, food that was prepared with “so much love” because, of course, at the time, the recipes—especially inherited recipes—were dishes cooked with so much care and it was very laborious,” Chef Tatung shared.
His grandfather, who worked in the maritime industry, also paved the way for his unforgettable experience with the rich flavors of Europe. He recalled receiving different kinds of cheese and caviar, among other delicacies, as gifts from sailors who arrived on their island.
As he looked back on his culinary upbringing, Chef Tatung expressed a sense of longing. “I grew up at the time when people were more, probably, innovative, more resourceful, more creative in the sense that there were limited resources and what was unlimited was your imagination, what was unlimited was your capacity to create,” he said.
With decades of experience, he observed that “it seems that the younger chefs are more stifled by these limitations to create”, due to the reliance on readily available cooking materials. Yet, this observation on cultural shifts and trends is also a testament to how far he has come in life.
From meal preparations to tasting various foods, all these experiences—these accumulations—since Chef Tatung was a little boy have been the sum of who he is right now.
Cooking the ‘simpol’ way
“When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a “chef” or “career as a chef” so, I really started with a love of cooking,” Chef Tatung said when asked if he had always envisioned becoming a chef. From his community itself, Simpol.ph, he is the epitome of simple cooking in the real sense.
Chef Tatung began learning to cook simply because he wanted to serve his loved ones. For decades, he only held private dinners. Everything he has now just simply unfolded before his eyes.
“There have been very many obstacles, many challenges [but I really told myself, “Ah, if this is meant for me, I will get through this.]…the Lord will make things unfold,”” he shared. And shouldn’t we all approach our passions with that same sense of simplicity? We pursue the main thing not because it will produce wealth or make us popular but because we love the people we can serve through it, leading us to our true calling.
For Chef Tatung, this true calling involves storytelling through food—a laborious work but one that is full of love for one’s heritage, family, and dreams.
“Apparently, things continued to grow, things continued to unfold. Challenges have been, you know, overcome…I believe that it’s not just about what your heart or your ego wants but it’s also about what you’re meant to fulfill in this world so my being a chef is really something that is so aligned with my life purpose.”
Now with two restaurants, Lore Manila in Bonifacio Global City and Tindeli in Gateway Mall, Chef Tatung is deepening his commitment to making “food that means something deeper than just masarap [delicious]”. Every person has a void in their heart, and over the years, he realized that cooking and feeding others is what fills his.
Mothers’ love is the secret ingredient
Chef Tatung didn’t just grow in the kitchen, he grew in his mother’s love—and his grandmother’s. By inheriting recipes “with so much care”, he learned to treat the people he served the way he was treated.
“It’s really like trying to satisfy the people you feed and also considering the kind of food that they love to eat. [“What do you want to eat? I’ll cook it for you”] — just like that. So I think there’s so much “motherhood energy” in the manner I cook because the people who really shaped the way I cook were the mothers around me,” he shared.
Mothers delight in cooking for their children and families, and for Chef Tatung who has witnessed the love they pour out into every meal, cooking has become a form of servitude. “It’s really about cooking mindfully and thoughtfully to feed people you love, the kind of consciousness that allows one to create something unselfishly so that others may enjoy,” he said.
What a beautiful way to put it: making people happy by cooking food that brings joy to their stomachs and hearts. It’s servitude, isn’t it? A form of love, that of a selfless one.
Chef Tatung’s culinary journey shows us that a mother’s love extends far beyond the family kitchen, reaching all the way to restaurant tables. What has sustained him—and what continues to sustain the community his passion has built—is the love grounded in the mothers around him. It’s this love that he carries with him to this day, as he grew from a little kitchen boy to an award-winning chef.
