Filipino food – historically underrepresented in Melbourne’s dining scene – has been on the rise in the western suburbs, with spots like Mama Lor, Migrant Coffee and Chibog opening in recent years. Now Ceree – a new Filipino cafe, restaurant and pantry on Spring Street – is among a wave of venues, including Kariton ice-creamery and the soon-to-open Askal, bringing the phenomenon to the CBD.
Ceree is a new iteration of Albert Estampador’s Basement Cafe, which opened in 2020, just two weeks before Melbourne’s first lockdown.
Basement Cafe was a first foray into hospitality for Estampador, who worked as a designer for more than three decades. He hired chef Christopher Chantioco, a young nurse who moved to Melbourne from the Philippines five years ago with just $1000 to his name. Before Basement Cafe, Chantioco honed his skills at Happy Hut, a neighbourhood Filipino restaurant in Albanvale, in Melbourne’s north-west.
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SIGN UPBasement Cafe’s most popular dish, Silog – a Filipino breakfast of garlic fried rice and fried egg with sides like tapa (cured meat), longganisa (pork sausage), tocino (sweet cured pork) and adobo – has unsurprisingly found its way to the duo’s new joint. And here too, all the accompaniments are made in-house.
“Now that we have a bigger space, dishes that were once on our specials board are now on the main menu,” Chantioco tells Broadsheet. The chef hopes to expose Melburnians who may not be super familiar with Filipino food to lesser known dishes. “We want Filipino food to be more than just adobo.”
Inspired by family recipes, the menu also features batchoy (noodle soup) and Filipino spaghetti, a homey take on bolognaise that varies from household to household, but is usually made with hotdog sausages; banana ketchup; and ground pork; and dinuguan, a stew of pork, pig’s blood, vinegar and spices. There are also sweets like buko (coconut) pie and turon (fried jackfruit and banana lumpia, or spring rolls).
There’s coffee from the Gold Coast’s Supreme Roasters. But the star of the drinks list is the iced ube latte, a creamy number with a shot of espresso that balances sweet and nutty notes.
Ceree radiates comfort and community, with a design whose neutral tones and wooden furniture mimic the appearance of a Filipino home. The pantry section is reminiscent of a sari-sari, or convenience store, selling Filipino chocolates and chips, plus hard-to-find cooking ingredients like banana ketchup.
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