Chef-owner of Toyo Eatery in Manila, Jordy Navarra has kept the restaurant in Asia’s 50 Best since 2019, reaching No. 24 in 2024 and No. 42 in 2025, the year it received the Gin Mare Art of Hospitality Award for service rooted in Filipino malasakit.
Born and raised in Manila, Navarra found his calling after university and headed to the UK to cook at The Fat Duck, where he absorbed sensory storytelling and rigorous technique. A stint at Hong Kong’s Bo Innovation showed him how tradition can meet global modernity. Back home he tested a pop-up called Black Sheep (2014), then opened Toyo Eatery with his wife May in a former warehouse on Chino Roces Avenue in 2016.
“Toyo”—soy sauce in Tagalog—signals an informal space with uncompromising craft. The signature Bahay Kubo Salad layers eighteen vegetables named in a folk song; other dishes—pork tail adobo, grilled saba bananas with bagoong sauce, broths from fish bones—underline a no-waste ethos and partnerships with farmers and fishers from Quezon, Benguet and Mindanao. Ingredients such as heirloom rice from Ifugao and Davao cacao arrive from producers Navarra visits himself.
Recognition followed quickly. Asia’s 50 Best named Toyo its Miele One To Watch in 2018, and the restaurant debuted at No. 43 the next year, holding the title of Best in the Philippines ever since. In 2023 it earned the Flor de Caña Sustainable Restaurant Award for environmental practices, and in 2025 the Gin Mare Art of Hospitality Award honored a style of service that treats guests with genuine care.
Navarra’s beverage program mirrors these principles: low-intervention Asian wines share the list with artisan lambanog and craft beers from Pampanga. With Panaderya Toyo he reimagines pan de sal and ensaymada using local grains, while the Katutubo foundation offers scholarships to young cooks from the Visayas.
