(WNYC) Renee Dizon didn’t set out to build a way of life for Filipinos in Queens. But three decades after she and her husband established a modest restaurant in Woodside, that is what it has become. . Before Jeepney and Maharlika, before Lumpia Shack and Instagram-famous ube pastries, there was Renee’s Kitchenette and Grill.
What Dizon and her family have built for the local Filipino community is something of a rarely celebrated success story amid fits and starts for the cuisine, as restaurateurs try to deepen its notches within the most brutal and unforgiving culinary landscape in the United States: New York City.
Filipino dining in the five boroughs has become more visible since food writers provided the earliest whiffs of recognition in the 1980s. Breakthroughs in more recent years have included a thriving pop-up scene and the increased prominence of traditional practices. But the cuisine’s biggest gains have formed a counterpoint with the closures of coveted former success stories in Manhattan, as well as fresher fusion ventures that failed to attract stable business… Read More
