Manileño, a restaurant serving authentic, homestyle cuisine from the Philippines, aims to open its doors at 3611 Juniata Street late this month or early December. The spot previously held VP Square, a popular Asian fusion restaurant from the owners of Cafe Mochi, and then the short-lived and ill-fated Snō.
The new concept comes from the Torio family, which has lived in St. Louis since immigrating from Manila in the late 1980s. The restaurant’s name, Manileño, is a reference to that history.
“Manileño means the origins of Manila,” says Raquel “Rocky” Torio, who is opening the restaurant along with her two elder brothers and her mother.
The venture hearkens back to a barbecue stand the family had in the Philippines. Torio’s mother had long thought about venturing into the restaurant business in St. Louis, and Torio worked in the hotel industry for 17 years, most recently as a general manager at a Hilton-brand company.
Her brothers, meanwhile, became independent truck drivers — careers that the COVID-19 pandemic stalled out. Suddenly, the family’s long-held dream of opening a restaurant started to seem like a better and better idea.
Torio says things got serious a few months ago when she found the spot on Juniata. They’d looked at a few different areas, but this one spoke to them.
“The space itself was absolutely gorgeous,” she says. “It was pretty much a semi-turnkey restaurant, which is another great thing. So we just did a lot of cosmetic work to make it our own.”
Another big plus was the location, just steps away from South Grand. Torio immediately liked the diversity of restaurants in the area and the foot traffic.
Manileño will serve traditional Filipino cuisine, which Torio says was influenced from both a variety of Asian traditions and Spanish dishes, with adobo probably being its most famous dish in the U.S.
But Torio says Manileño’s menu will be a little different from what diners are accustomed to at other Filipino restaurants — the dishes will include the kinds of things you’d find at someone’s home and local restaurants in the Philippines.
“It’s more fun,” she says. “It’s traditional. We put a lot of love in our food.”
That’s not just a metaphor. Torio says many of the dishes take a long time to prepare, anywhere from two hours to two days, and might include long marinations.
Her favorite dish on the menu is one of the three pancits, a stir-fried noodle dish that incorporates two kinds of noodles as well as the customer’s protein and broth of choice.
Torio also hopes to bring traditional Filipino hospitality culture to St. Louis.
“A Filipino thing is like, ‘Eat more,’” she says. “We’re bringing that into our establishment so everyone can feel what that true Filipino [hospitality] is like.”
The building includes a downstairs space that will be used for a bakery and cafe as well as for a takeout operation and more casual dining. The second floor will be used for dining and as a lounge.
Only the need to get some final furniture pieces, supplies and permits stand in the way now, and Torio says she’s both excited and nervous about the impending opening.
“Definitely getting antsy,” she says. “We’re having a lot of high expectations.”
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