Maginhawa restaurant Van Gogh Is Bipolar is an old haunt for many.
Celebrities like Heart Evangelista, Alessandra De Rossi, and Anne Curtis dined here as did international news outfits BBC and Buzzfeed. Van Gogh Is Bipolar’s quirky interiors and food all revolved around its owner Jetro Vin Rafael’s efforts to live with his bipolar condition. But in 2021, Rafael stopped operations and let go of his landmark spot he’s had since 2009.
“My priority has always been my family. Honestly my pausing had nothing to do with the pandemic. I made the decision to stop everything to focus on taking care of my life partner of 20 years. To be given the opportunity to spend more time with a loved one is a rare gift itself,” Rafael explains.
“My priority has always been my family. Honestly my pausing had nothing to do with the pandemic. I made the decision to stop everything to focus on taking care of my life partner of 20 years. To be given the opportunity to spend more time with a loved one is a rare gift itself,” Jetro Vin Rafael explains.
His life partner, artist Robert Alejandro, is living with colon cancer. Rafael used his relationship with food as medicine to create a diet for Alejandro to help manage his cancer, similar to the way he made a homeopathic medicine and nutrition to help treat his own mood disorder (which in turn became the basis for Van Gogh Is Bipolar’s menu).
The food Rafael serves at Van Gogh Is Bipolar uses ingredients that are rich in mood-healing nutrients. “When you’re feeling depressed, stressed, you’re in a bad mood, all ingredients are known to activate specific neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid known to make you happy and calm. Food for me is living medicine and goes beyond just to satisfy a craving.”
It wasn’t long until Rafael yearned for reopening the place he describes as a “mood-healing sanctuary.” “I knew I was doing a great job being a partner and serving my partner but at some point I realized that I couldn’t lose myself in the process. It’s as important… as important as nourishing other people… to nourish yourself,” he says.
“In the first part of 2022, I walked around the neighborhood where my partner lives and looked for a place. I went to so many places. What’s difficult about commercial places is that you’re not allowed to live in them. But if you look at residential areas, you can’t make it commercial. So, two months ago, I went to where Van Gogh Is Bipolar was originally in Maginhawa to visit a friend. The one unit that was available was the old location of Van Gogh Is Bipolar. It’s been a year and they still couldn’t find a tenant,” Rafael recalls. “I called my old landlord and got it back just like that.”
The entrance to Van Gogh Is Bipolar is a tall wardrobe, conjuring the magic of the popular children’s classic “The Chronicles of Narnia.” This entryway serves an important role in preparing visitors for what’s to come: You are entering Rafael’s psyche.
The space is brighter compared to past iterations of the restaurant, helping Rafael express his current state of mind in an intuitive way. It has more nods to Philippine craftsmanship—such as wood furniture with ornate marquetry—mixed in with collections from travels.
One chair has busted upholstery but revels alongside a perfect one in sweet red velvet. “That one chair that I keep that is ‘sabog’ makes sense in my head. It’s a perfect representation of a part of me that is also ‘sabog.’ When you’re judging and say ‘Oh that thing is ugly because it’s broken’ then your imagination and creativity becomes limited. The moment you see beyond the brokenness, it becomes a portal of infinite imagination and creativity.”
“A pause doesn’t have to be a grand vacation or getting on a cruise. A pause can be a deep, long breath. When I wake up in the morning, I greet myself good morning. At night, I give myself a hug and thank myself.”
The F&B Industry has been notorious for the pressure it puts on chefs. Based on a 2017 research, 74 percent of chefs are sleep deprived to the point of exhaustion, 63 percent felt depressed, and more than half felt pushed to the breaking point. In the FX show “The Bear,” viewers get a glimpse of the raw and less glamorized scenes in the kitchen where chefs and cooks get verbally abused and forced to impossible levels of perfection.
As a staunch mental health and wellness advocate, Rafael’s approach is the antithesis of the typically competitive kitchen culture.Just as he took time to deal with personal issues and prioritize what he values in life, he also believes it’s important for people who work in the kitchen to do the same.
“The perfect time to pause to take care of yourself is always now. It’s very important at any given moment to pause to take care of yourself,” he advises. “We’re so busy and there are so many things to do, and you always think, ‘I’ll rest next week.’ I feel like our well-being has to always be our main priority. We cannot do any good things for our family, friends, or community when we are not well.”
“A pause doesn’t have to be a grand vacation or getting on a cruise. A pause can be a deep, long breath. When I wake up in the morning, I greet myself good morning. At night, I give myself a hug and thank myself.”
It’s important that restaurant owners not only encourage mental health care but also embody it, so it’s good to have someone like Rafael back to set an example in the industry.
“Before it becomes a restaurant, it should be a safe space first and foremost,” he says. “It should be a safe space disguised as a restaurant.”