Angeles City, Philippines

Bale Dutung is the home restaurant of Claude Tayag, the painter and cook who has done more than anyone to document and promote Kapampangan cuisine. Bale Dutung means house of wood in Kapampangan, and the compound in Angeles City is exactly that: an open bamboo and hardwood structure surrounded by a working garden, where lunch is served on weekends by reservation only. The menu changes with what is growing and what Tayag is interested in cooking, but longganisa Pampanga appears regularly, made from the household recipe and cooked the slow water-then-fat method. The meal runs five or six courses and ends with desserts built from local cacao and sugar. Eating here is not the same as eating in a restaurant. It is eating at someone's house who happens to cook at a level most restaurants cannot reach.