National Food Showdown 2025

I caught the Baguio edition of the 16th National Food Showdown (NFS) after having missed the Cebu and Iloilo editions this year. Thanks to Baguio Country Club and the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB), we had a beautiful mountain top experience, as always, my co-judges opined. It was my first time to join this leg, as my previous judging experience for NFS was always in Batangas, it being easier to commit to and being close to Liberica or Barako coffee. Last year in Lipa, I even got to meet a Barako vendor at the Lipa Cathedral, and he then got featured in our newest book on coffee entitled “BREW.” That event actually hatched the idea for us to write a coffee book with the indefatigable founder of NFS, Chef Myrna Segismundo.

Chef Myrna is some kind of magician when it comes to mounting four or five NFS events a year. But she has arrived at the formula and the secret sauce: gather like-minded chefs, cooks, foodies to spend 4-5 days from their hectic calendar. No prima donnas. No celebrity chef with attitude. Just have fun while teaching students and professionals how to improve their craft. There we were with Chefs Robby Goco, Martin Kaspar, Thomas Wenger along with Rhea Rizzo, Tina Legarda, Angelo Comsti, Ginny de Guzman, Manny Torrejon – and you may wonder what do these star foodies have in common? They take schedules to heart, they are up at 5 a.m. to catch the 7 a.m. mocktails set up. Everyone stays until the last dish or display is judged, and reports and codes are sent to central HQ to tally scores.

In other legs, famous chefs like Grand Dame Glenda Barretto joined us in Batangas last year, while Chef Beth Romualdez joined them in Bacolod last time. Sandy Daza is now in Cagayan de Oro with pastry chef Penk Ching.

In Baguio, where Myrna and HRAB head Anthony de Leon have been teammates and partners for 16 years now, things proceed like clockwork. There is nothing left to chance as judges check in. You are welcomed to the beautiful refurbished rooms of the club, meals and drinks provided at the judges’ lounge and you get schedules and directions and all the minute details you may ask about. Students from all over Cordillera region troop to BCC for their competitions with excitement and certainly with a lot of fear. Professionals from restaurants and hotels around Baguio also send their competing chefs, baristas, housekeepers and bartenders. The three-day event rocked Baguio – literally – as the first day received aftershocks from the Pugo, La Union earthquake. But the show must go on, as we were assured the Convention Hall was made of rock-hard materials and real steel.

After having seen Anthony and Chef Myrna at work, I get to understand how NFS has become an institution. The local partner must be as passionate and involved in the main mission: to discover these diamonds in the rough and hone them to be the exemplars in the industry. The youth await this opportunity and most even get coaches like it was a revalida. Whether it is preparing regional cuisine or making a fancy pineapple flambé in the live kitchen, the students cheer for their favorites as judges knotted their brows in deciding who is better at neatness, preparation and who observed the theme: Sustainability. Foraging in your backyards to discover a talisay nut or edible flowers, bamboo tisane or herbal tea, the idea of sustainability and honoring local ingredients is impressed upon the youth while they create the themed dish. Can you believe I tasted 19 pineapple flambé renditions! But I was overjoyed with the ingredients they each found, further expanding my catalog of foraged edible food.

After a quick lunch of beautiful grilled meats and seafood and the famous breads of the Baguio Country Club, it was our turn to judge tea concoctions, which was perfect as it was after a hurried but sumptuous midday break. The herbal teas ranged from rattan fruit to Bambusa Vulgaris (common bamboo) leaves to our usual lemongrass, pandan and ITSA mountain tea.

My next session was Coffee Concoctions, of course. And what a joy to see these professionals honor their local brew: preserving traditions like brewing in a claypot, foraging for edible flowers to be used to garnish their cocktails and using Cordillera coffee in every concoction.

Now, imagine chefs tasting 11 versions of kilawin (ceviche) or etag (dried smoked pork), some had to taste various versions of pinakbet while others judged wedding cakes, table settings and cocktails with flairtending. I caught the last part of this session where there were people tasked with just catching the wayward bottles of nervous jugglers or performers. Comic relief in a tense situation as it is a competition, after all.

And all these go on for three long days (for each leg) but with a very noble purpose: to discover talent where there are not many opportunities if left by themselves to find that golden chance. And for over a decade now, NFS has produced many chefs, cooks, bartenders who have become famous here and abroad. In fact, some of them now join Chef Myrna, so they can also give back. Because they know how it feels to have the interest and potential but no stage to show it on. Observers see the results but never ask who thought of putting this up some 16 years ago. Chef Myrna is one quiet founder and enabler.

That is National Food Showdown (NFS). As of this writing, I am the one convincing Chef Myrna to document the stories of success borne out of their experience in having competed and won at an NFS event many years back. The secret sauce? I keep asking Chef Myrna: why do these name chefs volunteer or raise their hands when you call? And she just smiled: because they believe in the cause. It is not profit-driven, it is purpose-driven. Well said, chef.

Let me sign up for the next one.