The Aristocrat, Ma Mon Luk, Razon’s, Rodic’s. 

With a tight-knit family at the helm, these are just some homegrown brands that have stood the test of time to develop a loyal patronage among Filipino diners. Hearty, heirloom recipes became the name of the game. And with every logo tweak, menu edit, or interior update they have conducted over time, brand consistency became the end goal.

A new Japanese restaurant along Katipunan, Quezon City is looking to emulate the magic of these successful family restaurants. Whereas the aforementioned institutions capture deliberate unions among family members in their brand development, the recently opened Gureisu Okawari tells more of a reunion story.

The man in the kitchen

At the center of Gureisu Okawari’s story is head chef Elmer Garganta. He is the brother of CEO Cassandra Laforteza’s maternal grandmother. In the ’80s, Garganta traveled to Manila with his late sister to embark on his culinary career. He started at Japanese restaurant Sugi, which still exists to this day, as a dishwasher.

“Chef Elmer was very keen to learn from the people around him because he knew that was his way to improve his status in life,” Laforteza says of her lolo. “He worked his way up to becoming the head chef of the restaurant.”

It was at Sugi where Garganta polished his sushi-making skills, staying there for 19 years before taking on further culinary training under executive Japanese chefs in Ikebukuro, a commercial district in Tokyo, Japan.

“We work together as a family. We also learn a lot from each other. We are there for each other, especially in the ups and downs of the business. We all make sure that there’s always good vibes in the restaurant, which makes working together fun,” CEO Cassandra Laforteza says.

Garganta then moved to the Middle East to apply all his learnings. He wore the executive toque in restaurants across Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Belarus. Perhaps the glossiest deal among these opportunities would be those in Beirut. He was the head chef at the city’s top-rated Shogun Lounge Restaurant and participated in the yearly Beirut Cooking Festival. 

As a celebrity chef who would join the ranks of Alexis Couquelet and Charles Azar, he taught a masterclass in authentic Japanese sushi. He appeared on cooking shows and even landed a cover feature story on “Hospitality News – Middle East” back in 2012.

While making a name for himself abroad, in 2016, Garganta lent his brains in the creation of a Japanese food stall back home. He had come up with the menu for the first Gureisu Okawari in a food park in Marikina City, with chef de partie (also his partner) Ria manning the kitchen.

The brand name was a conjunction of the Japanese terms for “grace” (gureisu) and “more food please” (okawari).

“Our food is truly satisfying and will make customers say, ‘Gureisu okawari!” explains Laforteza.

Okawari would become a family affair, with Laforteza’s mother and her siblings as the founders and managers. The stall turned out to be a hit in its first location, with Garganta’s spicy crunchy tuna salad, sukiyaki, and the Catie maki becoming bestsellers. Sadly, it only lasted more than a year following the obsolescence of the food park trend.

A new opportunity opens

The past few years haven’t been exactly the best for Laforteza and her family. Aside from Okawari’s closure and the effects of the global pandemic, she also lost her father in 2019. 

Garganta, affected by the rampage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political crisis in Lebanon in late 2019, was unsettled himself. He finally chose to fly back home, following the family’s idea to revive Okawari. After decades of work in Japan and the Middle East, he was finally returning to where he started.

The Lafortezas and Gargantas finally opened Gureisu Okawari in February this year. The new location? The Pop Up in Katipunan, an open-air property fitted with movable container vans as the “stalls” and populated with students, young professionals, and some of Manila’s wealthiest villages. 

Calling Okawari’s story serendipitous, in retrospect, could be reductive. But that might be close to accurate knowing how all the unfortunate events have led the family to good things. Okawari has suddenly become the family’s binding force, a collective energy priming them for whatever life throws next.

“We also worked on the belief that chef Elmer’s talent and skills will be appreciated and enjoyed by Japanese food patrons. We know that a lot of business has closed down during the pandemic, but we saw it as an opportunity to enter the market. There’s less competition and there’s demand for authentic Japanese cuisine in the area.”

With Garganta now physically helming the kitchen, Okawari’s brand of cooking is not just intact; it’s also a massive improvement from its earlier iteration. 

“People love our maki that has avocado in it because there’s not many Japanese restaurants with avocado options on their menu,” says Laforteza. “The bestseller on our sushi menu is our caterpillar maki, which has unagi inside and avocado outside. Our spicy crunchy tuna and salmon salad is another popular dish—people would sometimes make a trip to the resto just for that salad.”

Passing the baton

Besides the CEO role, Laforteza, a business administration graduate of Miriam College, also takes care of marketing. Meanwhile, her sister Charlene, an entrepreneurial management student, is the COO. Her other siblings Jason, Carlo, and Cyndie are all part of the Okawari brand as production manager, operations manager, and social media associate, respectively.

“Everyone in the family has their assigned roles in putting up the restaurant. My brother Jason was assigned to take care of the construction and design. I took care of sourcing the furniture and equipment,” says Laforteza.

“It was tough to move around and run errands for the restaurant because of the pandemic. There’s so much risk to go to different places. Most of our supplies are sourced through social media, which was challenging because there’s a lot of trial and error.”

Still, it’s truly been a fun family affair at Okawari.

“We work together as a family. We also learn a lot from each other. We are there for each other, especially in the ups and downs of the business. We all make sure that there’s always good vibes in the restaurant, which makes working together fun,” Laforteza says.

Safe to say, for the young entrepreneur, working with her talented, celebrated but ever-humble lolo is the best part. Only harmony—no generation gap—here. 

“I’m very grateful for this chance to work with my grandfather; his skills and work ethic are everything you wish for in a business partner. He’s very strict in his kitchen because he’s very particular with the quality of supplies and food, consistency of our product, and cleanliness of his kitchen,” says Laforteza.

Born during the new normal, Okawari is heavily reliant on social media. And it’s fairly successful at that with young celebrities and influencers like Nadine Lustre, Lou Yanong, Jach Manere, Kianna Dy, and Dwight Ramos among its patrons.

Okawari is also looking to expand after having acquired the adjacent 15 square-meter spot “which we will turn into a minibar when the situation gets better.” A branch in the south is also part of the vision.

Calling Okawari’s story serendipitous, in retrospect, could be reductive. But that might be close to accurate knowing how all the unfortunate events have led the family to good things. Okawari has suddenly become the family’s binding force, a collective energy priming them for whatever life throws next.

“Don’t settle. Adapt. There have been a lot of twists and turns, but we always come up with plans to survive these challenges,” says Laforteza, who, at 22, is handling something that would become a family heirloom over time.

“It was all faith, mostly coming from the self-belief that our older folks taught us.”