Chilli Gar­lic Paste

Hel­lo! My name is Roni and I am the founder of RoniB’s Kitchen. I was born and edu­cat­ed in the Philip­pines and have been liv­ing in the UK for 18 years now togeth­er with my life part­ner, Steve. I start­ed RoniB’s Kitchen in 2017, the year I was turn­ing half a cen­tu­ry, as a side hus­tle and to com­ple­ment our sup­per clubs, where it became a mis­sion of mine to make Fil­ipino food known, appre­ci­at­ed and loved because it is an unknown cui­sine here in the UK.

My love of food start­ed very ear­ly on. I have an insa­tiable appetite for deli­cious food and at the age of 12, I start­ed ven­tur­ing into the kitchen and my culi­nary jour­ney began with bak­ing cakes and cook­ies. As I grew up, I moved into the more savoury world, pay­ing atten­tion to inter­na­tion­al dish­es as these were not usu­al­ly cooked at home, as our home fare were very much based on local and region­al dishes.

Mov­ing out of my par­ents’ home and my native coun­try has pushed me to become a bet­ter cook and under­stand what is local­ly avail­able and re-cre­ate dish­es from my food mem­o­ries of the Philip­pines that cel­e­brates the bold and com­plex flavours of the land and sea, but also the sub­tle taste influ­ences of our South­east Asian neigh­bours, as well as Spain, Mex­i­co and Amer­i­ca. My prod­ucts are my trib­ute to a cui­sine over­looked by many but unfor­get­table to those who have tried it.

From 2016, when I first intro­duced Philip­pine cui­sine in a cook-off for the​‘Best Alter­na­tive Christ­mas Dish’ on TV, to con­tribut­ing a dessert recipe to The New Fil­ipino Kitchen cook­book pub­lished in 2019, to hold­ing 2 Great Taste Awards for our Black Bean Chilli Oil (1‑star Great Taste Award 2019) and our Kala­man­si Mar­malade (2‑star Great Taste Award 2020), it is my hope that you will take a culi­nary jour­ney with me to the flavours of My Philippines.