We Filipinos love our pigs. A prudent soul or not, one can’t just decline a gluttonous feast that involves the glorious roasted pig—especially now that Cebu’s favorite Rico’s Lechon isn’t islands away from Manila anymore.

Its first branch outside the Queen City of the South is located at The Fort Strip in Bonifacio Global City and now under a new management, Meat Concepts Corp. The company’s president George Pua is a self-proclaimed lechon fanatic who’s been wanting to franchise Rico’s for almost five years.

“Ever since I tasted Rico’s Lechon, I focused on [franchising] it. I found ways to get in touch with the owner (Enrico Dionson). When we talked [about it] five years ago, ayaw pa niya kahit franchise lang,” Pua says. However, the stars aligned for him. Last year, Dionson called up Pua and “out of the blue, he asked if (Pua would) be interested to buy the whole brand.”

nolisoli rico’s lechon — *The cooks and roasting team in Bonifacio Global City branch are from Cebu as well.*

So earlier this year, after the full turn over of two Rico’s branches in Cebu, Pua was set to open multiple ones in Metro Manila, starting in Bonifacio Global City.

The flagship branch at The Fort Strip can accommodate 180 lechon-hungry individuals. It also has a function room on the second floor, which can hold 18 people.

In BGC, the roasting team can only do so much, cooking-wise. Unlike what they do in Cebu (roasting in soil), the roasting here is done indoors with its roasting pit for four hours. It’s the first of its kind in the area and the only site to have this viewing corner where customers and passersby alike can salivate at the sight of the glistening meat in the caramel-crisped skin of herbs and spices-stuffed lechon from afar.

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Aside from the crispy skin and melt-in-your-mouth lechon (which comes in two variants: original and spicy), here are other items you should make room for when visiting Rico’s:

Lechon humba is a pork stew with large chunks of lechon. It’s served with hard-boiled egg and some greens. Gising-gising, on the other hand, is a delectable vegetable dish with crispy green beans and minced beef cooked in coconut oil.

Together with the usual kare-kare vegetables, Rico’s has prawns and tahong. Although creamy, the sauce can use more flavor that isn’t from the bagoong.

You can pair everything with their fried rice trio, a kaldero-full of sticky rice flavored by three kinds of dried fish namely tinapa, tuyo, and danggit. It’s honestly a good dish to devour just by itself because of its powerful flavors, so if you want to savor the other fare more, just order the good ’ol plain rice.

This year, Rico’s opening branches in the metro from north to south: