Filipino food has long been promised as the next big thing and Sharon May's in Gungahlin is on track to make it happen

Sharon May’s Filipino Cuisine, located in the Bunnings complex in Gungahlin, has been serving traditional Filipino food since late 2022.

Taking the name of owner and Filipino native, Sharon May Maranan, the restaurant is one of less than a handful of venues serving Filipino food in the Canberra region, a cuisine that for a number of years has been touted, by those in the know, as the next big thing.

Sitting down with the Maranans, they are proud to be serving authentic Filipino food and hopeful that the cuisine of their home country takes off in the same way as its Southeast Asian cuisine counterparts, Thai and Vietnamese.

A week prior to my chat with Sharon and Jaime Maranan, I had wandered into the restaurant for a quick lunch, completely unaware of what I was about to experience.

Having spent time in the Philippines whilst motorbiking across the island of Palawan, I had grown to love Filipino food. Its blending of Malay and Chinese influences with flavours from Spain, from its time under Spanish rule, is unlike any cuisine in Asia.

Rich meat-based stews, like the national dish called adobo, are enlivened with bold use of garlic, vinegar and soy. Fatty, tender grilled meats are paired with tart pickles and punchy dipping sauces and sweet is always balanced with a good helping of sour.

It’s these complex flavours that the large menu at Sharon May’s delivers and they really run the gamut of what the cuisine has to offer, including Filipino breakfast, which is a whole cuisine unto itself. Known as silog, Filipino breakfasts feature cured sweet meat like tosilog (cured sweet pork), as well as marinated, dried beef known as tapsilog plus spring rolls and pork sausages served with fried rice, egg and vinegar.

The restaurant has been an evolution over the past two years, Sharon says.

“I originally wanted to open a coffee shop because I’m a baker, but when we bought this restaurant, it was a Vietnamese takeaway, so the people coming wanted bahn mi and restaurant food. I encouraged my husband that we should get a chef.”

It was the hiring of that first chef, a woman from the island of Cebu in the Philippines, that started to shape what the restaurant would become.

“Our first chef we hired from Cebu said that she could do Cebu lechon (slow roast suckling pig) so we started with that. We then added the silog (breakfast) dishes to the menu. And from there we started adding adobo and ended up with a full menu,” says Sharon.

It’s Sharon’s knowledge of good food that has helped curate such a well-balanced and diverse menu.

“My parents come from the island of Pampanga, which in the Philippines is renowned for being the culinary capital and having the best cooks,” explains Sharon.

As the business grew, each new chef they took on brought with them dishes from their own native regions of the more than 7000 islands that make up the Philippines.

“When you go to different places in the Philippines, they have different dishes and different ways of cooking dishes. One of our chefs brought dishes from the region of Ilocos on the island of Luzon. The speciality from my parents’ region is sisig and my husband is from Batangas; it just all came together and we keep it traditional,” says Sharon.

While Sharon turns to experienced chefs for the restaurant, herself and her husband hold down full-time jobs. Sharon is in the field of medical science and Jaime is in the public service.

Sharon herself comes from a city near Manila called Cavite and despite managing full-time work, two kids and a restaurant, she specialises in baking and desserts and makes all of the desserts for the restaurant as well as taking private cake orders for celebration cakes.

Sharon’s desserts are on display in the cabinets at the front of the restaurant; bright green buko pandan with its sweetened milk base, young coconut and submerged jelly is an eye catcher, the ube flan is their best seller and the ube lengua de gato is a bright purple shortbread biscuit that is so short and deliciously sweet. All are well sought-after by the Filipino community.

With busy lives and full-time careers, when asked what keeps them going, Jamie acknowledges the challenges of hospitality and explains that the lease is a lot of money and the cost of staff to make dishes like lechon is very expensive, but they do it for the community.

“We employ Filipino students who rely on us for employment. We support sporting teams and Filipino community groups who are well-connected with each other in the Canberra region,” says Jaime.

It may only be mere weeks into 2025, but I’m already calling it, this is one of my favourite eats of the year. I wholeheartedly agree with the “people in the know”, Filipino food has been in the dark too long, it’s time for a broader spectrum of people to dive into this cuisine and Sharon May’s is a wonderful way to start on this mission of exploring Filipino food and culture here in Canberra.

Sharon May’s Filipino Cuisine is open six days a week from Tuesday until Sunday. You can follow them on Facebook for updates on their expanding menu as they continue to develop their business.

Original Article published by Tenele Conway on Riotact.