The fire from within
Liyab is one of the restaurants everyone is talking about.
Liyab means “flame” in English and symbolizes clarity rather than intensity.
Charles Montañez is the owner and head chef of Liyab. The newly opened tasting menu venue in Bonifacio Global City was created by him. It offers an intimate dining experience centered on what Charles loves about Filipino food.
He cooks nearly all dishes over a live fire. He emphasizes Filipino produce, time, smoke, and heat to develop flavor, serving a constantly changing menu that is very precise and personal. He is also the executive chef and co-owner of Mamacita, a taqueria and bar serving Mexican and Latin American flavors that was recently selected for the inaugural Michelin Guide to the Philippines.
Charles trained at the International School for Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management and the Global Culinary and Hospitality Academy. He has worked in the kitchens of Mövenpick Hotel in Cebu and other restaurants in Singapore and gained recognition as the founding chef of Gruppo Algeria, an award-winning restaurant group known for its playful blend of Latin American and Filipino flavors.
I am glad he stepped away so that he could focus on his own projects. His cooking is grounded in solid technique, bold flavors, and a drive to continually experiment, utilizing fire, indigenous ingredients, and a blend of Filipino and Latin influences.
He says, “Liyab is the kind of fire that wakes you up from the inside. It starts with a quiet awakening, that subtle push telling you it is time to open your eyes and step into something bigger. Then it warms to a passion that makes you want deeper, move with purpose, and it becomes a commitment. Your efforts begin to matter. From there, it turns into renewal. Not a dramatic reset, a steady clearing of old fears and ideas. Liyab is the flame that helps you grow into what you want to become.”
The roughly 30-seat restaurant features cooking techniques such as grilling, smoking, roasting, and stewing over an open fire. Liyab offers both a unique culinary experience and a space for personal expression, where memory, technique, and curiosity are illuminated on every plate. Charles works with his sous chefs Gilbert Borja and Oye Panganiban, pastry chef Hanna Quiatchon, and restaurant manager Dimitri Bora.
Each dish of the nine-course tasting menu holds a fragment of the life of Charles, offered with little explanation. Local ingredients enhanced by fire retain its character. Table-side preparations are what make Liyab more intimate, draw the kitchen and cooks closer without feeling staged. Diners witness the finishing touches of each dish.
I have been waiting for this restaurant for a while and I did enjoy the meal immensely but some starters really stood out. One was the bone broth, ox tongue, 15-month-old beef Garum and corn custard, bone marrow butter.
At the table, a heated flambadou (a heated cone shaped tool) melts bone marrow butter into a clear bone broth and is poured over a bowl a custard of local corn layered with the garum or fermented fish sauce and finished with fried leeks and wood-fired ox tongue. This dish references bulalo, the preferred Filipino soup of Charles. Another is Sagay City sea urchin, F1 Wagyu sirloin, Tinigib, Kampot pepper, beef heart. Sea urchin from Negros is served on the shell alongside Bacolod tinigib (Visayan white corn and is complemented by sirloin and ox heart (normally smoked tuna). Cambodian kampot pepper anchors the dish to the chef’s early memories of the Japanese restaurant Pepper Lunch, where sizzling plates, raw beef hitting heat, corn, leeks, and strong pepper defined the experience. I loved the “Botan Ebi, Hot Prawn Tea, Labanos, Lanzones, Dalandan and Blackbird Farms’ Blue Cheese.”
Japanese shrimp is served with house-made miso ice cream and Malagos blue cheese with radish blanched in dalandan (Philippine orange) ponzu and topped with dalandan kosho (spice) and seasonal lanzones. A tea bag filled with smoked prawn heads and kalkag (dried small shrimp) is steeped to make hot prawn broth, which is poured over the cold components, creating a clear contrast in temperature and texture.
BBQ, Squid Ball and Tawilis was a course of small bites rooted in Filipino street food: squid balls, tawilis (a freshwater Philippine sardine), and barbecue. Charles wanted to elevate familiar street snacks with creativity. Two more dishes arrived before the sharing course of pork adobo, beef longganisa, aged market fish, heirloom black and red rice, santol sa gata, balao balao, talbos and atsara. This course brings together three dishes meant to be enjoyed side by side. Pork adobo is prepared confit-style in the pugon (wood fired oven), following a method derived from adobong puti, using only vinegar and no soy sauce with the adobo’s subtle dark color coming from smoke. A layer of chicken skin crowns the dish, echoing lechon skin. Alongside, a beef longganisa made from three cuts of beef is shaped around the rib (which I actually thought was a beef rib) and wood-fired, served with 10-month-old pineapple vinegar. Apahap or Asian sea bass is grilled in a banana leaf and paired with a sauce of green bell pepper, green chili, and kintsay (Chinese celery). Two varieties of heirloom rice from Negros anchor the course: black rice with chopped calamari sofrito and red rice with crab fat. The dishes are served with a variety of condiments: balao-balao tempered with homemade squash miso, marinated cucumber atsara, and santol (cotton fruit).
There were a number of desserts but the combination of Marshmallow, Strawberry, Pili Nuts, Toasted Milk, Brownies and Pop Rocks was a refined take on the familiar scramble, which made it special for me as I adored this street frozen refreshment sold from carts when I was a child. Charles says he recalls when he would slip out from school to buy scramble from the vendors outside, which is the same thing I would do… but I only did this after school!
Not everyone agreed with my favorites as they had their own favorites but one thing in common was everyone enjoyed this new restaurant. Check out their maiden menu and judge it yourself…
(Liyab is located on the Roof Deck of W High Street Building, 11th Avenue corner 28th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City and is open from Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 PM to 12:00 AM. Two seatings start at 5:30 PM & 8:30 PM. Call (0929) 6334994 or email [email protected] for reservations or inquiries.)
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