NAGA CITY – Leandro R. Sto. Domingo, 31, has been making a name as one of the favorite chefs in this city.

From Manila, Sto. Domingo settled here for good in November 2006 when lifestyle centers were making inroads on a strip of Magsaysay Avenue.

Sto. Domingo said his first love was fine arts but he wound up cooking for a living.

His elder sister, who now resides in the United Kingdom working as a chef of an Italian restaurant, had been his inspiration to work in the kitchen.

She took up culinary arts and later became Mandarin Hotel’s Italian gourmet chef. She is now sous chef at Sage Opera House in Newcastle.

“I immediately liked doing it,” Sto. Domingo smiled as he recalled the first-time thrill of creating a dish. Lasagna was the first dish he learned to cook.

He started cooking Italian cocktail recipes in 1997, like lasagna, under the mentorship of his sister to sustain the family-owned catering services “Hors d’oeuvre Unlimited,” which had a supply contract with Churchill’s, a wine and cigar store at the Shangri-La Hotel.

He assumed his sister’s responsibilities when she left for the UK, cooking and delivering Italian food to Churchill’s. At the same time, Sto. Domingo trained at the Pan-Pacific for six hours thrice a week for six months, learning European cuisine.

In 1998, he graduated from AMA Computer School. At that time, his family was about to give up the catering service.

Sto. Domingo’s drive to learn the art of cooking could not be contained, so he enrolled at Sharp Karilagan, a culinary arts school.

He said he was able to learn the basics of fine dining, selecting and concocting wines and spirits, and whipping up desserts.

He was able to find work as a line cook in an Italian restaurant at the Podium, where he stayed for three years beginning 2000. Later, an executive chef of the Mandarin Hotel gave him a break by assigning him at the hotel’s Tivoli, a fine-dining restaurant specializing in European cuisine.

In 2006, a couple who operates a homegrown fast-food chain invited him to set up a fine-dining restaurant in one of the establishments on Magsaysay Avenue.

On November 29, Sto. Domingo and his wife Rociel, 30, and their two kids took the bus from Cavite, where they were residing, to start a new life in Bicol.

On Oct. 30, 2008, the Sto. Domingo couple opened their own restaurant, offering Filipino dishes with a difference.

With only P100,000 from their savings and borrowed capital from friends who offered them financial assistance without interest, their dream of owning a restaurant was fulfilled.

Sto. Domingo said he researched on Bicol dishes, visiting several places in Bicol, before coming up with their own food concept.

He puts twist, flare and fusion in the native dishes he has loved since he was a kid, and the Bicol recipes he has come to appreciate.

By putting a twist in native dishes, he usually would introduce new ingredients to old recipes like crispy lechon kawali instead of ox tail for kare-kare.

In applying fusion on his recipes, Sto. Domingo said he would mix different culinary concepts into a certain dish. One example was the recipe he developed for pasta, which makes use of Bicol express and coconut milk as sauce and grilled pork belly for the toppings, instead of the usual meat balls and cheese.

Sto. Domingo has also served native recipes with flare, mixing in non-conventional ingredients, like serving tinolang manok accented by melon instead of papaya or sayote.

“I can’t believe I was able to start this restaurant with P1.4 million in capital. I really don’t know how I was able to generate the capital, considering the resources we have,” he said, adding that the experience has turned them into Christian believers.

Named “Chef Doy’s,” from his nickname Doy, Sto. Domingo feels he will thrive in the business given the profit he generates and the growing number of clients patronizing the Filipino dishes that he has rendered in different ways – with twist, flare and fusion.