It seems like a shiny and new brunch spot generates in BGC at least every month, but Maker and Made is up to the task of truly making it. The neophyte brunch restaurant opened only last May, but you can hardly tell due to the bustling crowd that calls it their home for the next meal or cup of coffee.
Brunch is a lifestyle, and the restaurant has seemingly perfected it. Their offerings read Australian, which was the main influence of the entire concept. It begs to be told, however, that the ingredients (and the brains and muscle behind the concept) are wholly Filipino.
There’s an efficient flow that you notice once you set foot in the restaurant. A counter displaying all of the day’s freshly baked goods and a takeout window overlooking the sidewalk are set up closest to the door, while a large coffee bar takes up most of the length of the restaurant.
The door to the kitchen slides open, which is necessary to avoid any commonly occurring restaurant mishaps, and even the bathroom was designed to flow as safely and efficiently as possible, with automatic sliding doors that open with a push of a button and a foot pedal sink.
None of these are coincidences. They’re simply the result of years of experience working in hospitality, explains the Maker and Made team.
A homecoming
Rue Ribon, Freddie Aguirre, and Elaine Figueroa are the trio of brilliant minds behind Maker and Made. With years of experience in the food and beverage and hospitality industries abroad, they’ve come home with their learnings to create something they can call uniquely theirs.
Ribon serves as the chef and culinary brains behind the cafe. Manning the bar is head barista and beverage director Aguirre, who Ribon met while working in Singapore.
Rounding the team out is Figueroa, their head of operations who also happened to be Rue’s roommate while they were working in Singapore.
“Back in Singapore, she used to put up drawings of the café she wanted to open back home,” says Figueroa of Ribon’s vision during their earlier days. Now, the dream has flown off the paper and into a brick and mortar structure—thanks to all their hard work and determination.
Times and seasons
Like most restaurants these days, sustainability and community are at the center of the restaurant. With Maker and Made though, they make sure to walk that talk.
To cut down on food waste (which is a pressing issue for everyone and not just restaurants), any leftover food goes to Food Rescue Philippines, an organization that collects food and distributes them to in-need communities.
They also employ the use of a vermicomposter, which uses worms to help speed up the decomposition process of food. The results are then turned into fertilizer, which is sent to Caliraya farms—one of their partners.
The restaurant also tends to adopt available seasonal ingredients into their menu, which means a salad you’ll have on Thursday may not have the exact same ingredients as one you’ll have on Sunday.
The salad in question is the grilled seasonal veggie salad, which had goat’s cheese sourced from Malagos, pumpkin, beets, leafy greens, and—surprise—rice. Heirloom rice serves as the base for their salad, and is the only rice on their menu.
“Filipinos tend to look for rice, [because] that’s what we’re used to. We wanted to show that there’s a different way to eat [it] that’s also healthy and good for your gut,” explained Ribon.
Edible experiences
Aside from the vegetables, their sourdough bread was the topic of “good for gut” conversation. The starter had been passed down to Ribon from a French chef during her time abroad, and when traced back, they found that it’s been passed down for 160 years.
The sourdough starter is what they use in all of their sourdough baked goods, like the slab of bread that makes its way into their tapa benedict, avocado, and salmon stracciatella toast. The avocado is sourced from Davao, and the stracciatella (or fresh mozzarella) they make in house.
Aside from delicious, structurally sound would be a good way to describe the restaurant’s toast dishes. After enduring photos outside, the base of the toast did not sog up to become a mushy mess, which is a win in my book.
The tapa benedict has to be one of the most unique iterations of eggs benedict that exists. Braised tapa is laid on a bed of sourdough pan de sal and topped with perfectly poached eggs, bearnaise sauce, and a sprinkling of paprika and seasonal herbs.
While decidedly Australian in execution, the heart of the dish is Filipino. The tangy sweetness from the tapa creates a rich explosion of flavor when eaten with the bearnaise sauce. It’s truly the best of both worlds.
Another uniquely executed dish came in the form of their mushroom scotch egg. The egg itself is ensconced in a crunchy, fried mushroom exterior while still maintaining a jammy center. The dish is served with a side of eggplant and mung bean hummus—which comes with sourdough chips. The resulting hummus is silky smooth with a roasted flavor, which means you probably won’t stop until all the sourdough chips are gone.
While it isn’t advertised, mushroom is something Maker and Made does exceptionally well. A last-minute addition to our meal was their mushroom croquettes. These bite-sized nuggets of goodness are miniature umami bombs that explode with every bite. The croquettes are topped with basil aioli and served with a raisin chutney, which is necessary to temper all the richness.
For the main dish, the beef and marrow burger is the balm for any hungry soul. It’s a big burger dressed in mayo mustard, sauerkraut, and a bacon-shallot marmalade. The richness from all the meat and marrow is tempered by the sauerkraut and the marmalade, which makes every bite one worth having.
A side of shoestring sweet potato fries completes the dish and serves as a fun nibble in between big, meaty bites. The restaurant makes the important and deliberate decision to switch out regular thick-cut fries for lighter, crispier shoestring ones—all in the name of balance.
Final bites
The spirit of sustainability finds its way into even their dessert, as evidenced by the use of whey (the liquid produced during the cheesemaking process) in their churros. Whey is usually discarded once you’re done making cheese, but the restaurant uses it as a base ingredient when making the caramel for the churros.
The resulting dessert has another layer of creamy richness that adds an extra layer of warmth to the dish.
Sourdough breadcrumbs (which is technically considered food waste) also make its way into the light and fresh mango yogurt panna cotta as a streusel topping.
More than community and sustainability, care is at the core of Maker and Made. They walk the talk when it comes to truly caring about the environment through their practices, and also caring about the people they work with (which explains why they close at 5 p.m. on the dot).
It’s only right that we give the care right back by dropping by for a meal.
Maker and Made is located at Milestone at Fifth, 5th Ave., Bonifacio Global City. They’re open daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.