Coming to Hong Kong with her husband and baby daughter in the late 1980s, Siony Yumul started her career in a field that she had no prior experience in: F&B. At popular outlets operated by some of Hong Kong’s longest-established hospitality groups, Siony honed in on her knowledge of cocktails and studied about wine as she set up the city’s beloved wine and cocktail bars.
Siony was also trained and exposed to the wine industry by her wine mentor, the late Maggie Beale, a food and wine editor and oenologist, and a former judge of the renowned HOFEX – Asia’s Leading Food & Hospitality Tradeshow, which led to her exposure in this field. Siony’s understanding of wine was so profound, in fact, that her wine-pairing skill was recognized as being on the same par with renowned experts. In the electrifying nightlife area of SoHo, Siony was widely celebrated as the “Filipina bar manager who was well-versed in wine”.
With more than two decades of experience in F&B management up her sleeve, Siony has seen it all: the thriving wine and dine scene, pre- and post-handover Hong Kong, the SARS outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic. Always up for a challenge, Siony in the late 2000s singlehandedly managed the retail operations of the Jewish Community Centre, learning about Jewish customs and traditions as she transformed the Centre into a profitable business with multi-mullion-dollar turnover.
In 2013, inspired by her own success and the lack of visibility for female chefs, Siony opened her own catering business, Siony’s Lutong Bahay. Since then, she has been connecting the local community with more than just moreish, authentic Filipino dishes but also the genuine and generous hospitality that she is known for.
“The Mid-Levels is my area,” Siony would say, and she is right. From being a home cook for her friends to subsequently commercializing her business for the public, Siony and her family would bring heartfelt home-cooked Filipino specialities to Hong Kong’s luxury neighborhoods and mansions, delighting her customers with the communal-style Kamayan Feast and moreish home-cooked dishes with her unique human touch.
Despite exclusion from review platforms and wine and dine awards due to the nature of her business, Siony is nonetheless kept extremely busy throughout the year, even during COVID-19. From somewhere or someone, people would hear about Siony, and somehow they would find their way to Siony, to their palate’s content.
In late 2024, we had the opportunity to speak with Siony and her son, Ray Yumul, about Siony’s illustrious career, the work-life balance she managed to maintain so that her children didn’t lack for anything, and her various achievements that have garnered acclaim city-wide, including that from the Philippine Consul General. Read on to find out more about this unstoppable force of curiosity, open-mindedness, and hospitality called Siony Yumul.
FSI: When and why did you come to Hong Kong, Siony?
Siony: My husband was a musician. He found work here in Hong Kong at the Bar City, which was at the New World Centre (where K11 Musea currently is). A year later, in 1988, I came to Hong Kong with my daughter, who was one year and three months old. My husband and I married when we were young. I had no work experience, I only knew how to take care of my baby.
I started working in the kitchen of a Korean restaurant doing washing and cleaning. About three months later, the restaurant owner promoted me to front-of-house. One day, a colleague suggested that I worked at a bar, as a bartender. I looked at myself and I said, “How can I work at the front of a restaurant?” But we applied for the job opening anyway, and I was accepted right away.
It was an Australian company called TransAustralia Limited. It was the first non-local hospitality group in Hong Kong with many chains. They put me on the floor as a waitress and taught me how to take orders. Even when taking orders of steaks, I couldn’t tell medium-rare from well-done. Some people would laugh at me because I had no experience, but that’s how I built my experience in F&B in Hong Kong.
And then they put me at the bar, as a bartender. But I had no idea about the names of the cocktails and whiskeys! I felt like a student again, reading and studying the menu, asking my supervisor about things I didn’t understand. Later, the company opened a new outlet called Kangaroo Pub. They promoted me to supervisor, transferred me there, and put me in charge of the front-of-house and back-of-house.
In 1990, I applied for another job at Pomeroy’s Bar & Rest at Pacific Place. It was Mediterranean-style and it was nice to learn different concepts. I started as a cashier, but my big boss saw my potential and said, “You are good with people, you know your personality, you need to be on the floor.” I became a waitress before I was promoted to supervisor. Their first challenge for me was to promote the new food delivery business. It was a new concept back then. Customers would phone or fax in their orders, and we would deliver their meals in person to prime offices. I helped them build up the business. I eventually worked for eight years there, and during that time I had my second child, Ray. I don’t like to keep moving around. I want to observe and learn as much as I can.
In 1992, Pacific Coffee was established in Hong Kong. Its then-CEO met me through Pomeroy’s and offered me a part-time role to open the first Pacific Coffee store in Hong Kong. I led the team to set up the operations standard at Pacific Coffee’s first-ever branch at the Star Ferry Piers in Tsim Sha Tsui and Central. I was working two jobs back then: 8am to 5pm at Pomeroy’s and 6pm to 11pm as a part-time Barista for Pacific Coffee.
In the two years after the handover of Hong Kong to China, I worked as a bartender at some bars in Lan Kwai Fong. And then in 1999, I went to work at Staunton’s Wine Bar in Soho. I started as a bartender and was promoted to bar manager in a few months.
The good thing about Staunton’s Wine Bar is that the CEO enrolled me in a wine school and paid for my hospitality and service training. It was during that time that I studied whiskey, brandy, and cigar, and I had a wine mentor, Maggie Beale. The company paid for everything. It was expensive, but they said they saw potential in me, and the customers I served gave good feedback. I was shocked when I received first-class honors for my wine study because I came from the Philippines and I didn’t know anything about wine! There were 13 of us in the class, and only five passed. I was known in SoHo as the “Filipina who earned first-class honors in wine training” at that time. That got me interested in wine and liqueur.
FSI: How did you put your new knowledge to use?
Siony: I went to work at Agave Wan Chai. I was the opening manager there, I was the one who set up the bar. At Agave, they had more than 160 kinds of tequila, and I had to taste every night to learn. So if someone asked me to explain the difference between blanco tequila, reposado, and añejo, I would know how to. The white tequila, the blanco, is rested for two years in the barrel, the reposado, three or four years in the barrel, the añejo, five years in the barrel. But also, if you are a drinker of brandy and you don’t have brandy in your bar, I can recommend the añejo tequila because it’s quite similar.
People wondered how I knew all these things. For me, I just like to learn new things. My palate, my mind, and my heart all go together.
FSI: It is this combination of intuition and hunger for knowledge that makes you stand out from the rest, isn’t it? Tell us about that time you excelled in a wine-pairing competition.
Siony: After I received my first-class honors and the certificate, my mentor, Maggie Beale, who was also the co-founder of the Bar Talk magazine, would take me to the Marriott Hotel, where we would judge wines. It was the first time that Chilean wine was introduced to Hong Kong, and Maggie recommended me to be a judge for a Chinese cuisine and Chilean wine pairing session. I was so shocked because I was the only Filipina, the only Asian, at the roundtable; everyone else was a big thing at their companies or they were wine experts. We had to taste the different types of Chilean wine and pair them with Chinese food.
After that, I went to Staunton’s because I was the bar manager in the evening. At around midnight, Maggie came to Stauntons’s and said, “Siony, you have a very good judging of the wine!” I was like, “Huh?” And then she said, “You know the lady who sat next to you? She is known around the world as a wine expert in the hospitality industry!” I really didn’t expect that much, but I was amazed by how similar my judging notes were to my co-judges. This experience helped me recognize my skills and knowledge in wine.
Ray: My mum obviously had quite an illustrious career in F&B. She had seen how Hong Kong’s F&B and hospitality industry has changed in the past decades. Coming to Hong Kong in the 1980s with no experience, she has seen SARS, she has seen pre- and post-handover Hong Kong, she has seen COVID-19 – she has seen it all.
From her accounts, she was always surrounded by people who were experts in the industry. And she was very fortunate to have been in the same room and the same kind of social events with these people. Her experience is quite underrated in the sense that, people know her as a chef, but she is actually very experienced in wine and whiskey. She has judged competitions. And I think she doesn’t give herself enough credit.
FSI: You could say that Siony was fortunate to have met these people who gave her all these different opportunities. But I also like to think that these people saw the drive in Siony to learn. People don’t just give their knowledge or opportunities away, but they see Siony’s passion for knowledge. Am I correct?
Siony: Yes, very true. My parents were separated, we were poor, and I was bullied when I was younger. But I said to myself, I will not be poor forever. I will study and succeed with my own hard work. It wasn’t easy. I used to sell flowers at the markets.
Ray: My mum would share with me stories of her childhood and her culinary journey. There were issues in her family – the people who were looking after her prevented her from studying, they didn’t want her to be an educated woman. That’s what led to her meeting my father and then leaving the Philippines to look for something better. My mum wanted to go to school every day, and this is the wisdom she would share with us, her children, that education is important, no matter what happens.
FSI: You worked the night shift as a bar manager back then, Siony. How did you balance your work and your family life?
Siony: It was difficult. I was working two jobs. My children grew up without seeing me in the evening. My husband and I didn’t see much of each other because we worked different hours. My daughter, the eldest one, she was just 10 years old but she was very mature and she helped to look after her siblings. She and I would communicate with paper stuck on the fridge.
Ray: I remember that, the sticky notes.
Siony: Jan, my daughter, would put her homework on the table and a sticky note that said, “Mama, I love you, this is my homework.” I would come home at 3 o’clock in the morning, check her homework, and then, before I went to bed, I would prepare lunch for my children. I was very busy with my work, but I always made sure I had time for my children – I’m that kind of mother.
Ray: She was the best, she was my hero. I like to brag about my mum to my peers because although she was busy, she made time for us. Growing up, I would visit my mum at her workplace after school. I would do my homework at the bar at Staunton’s. We would celebrate Christmas at her workplace. Because she couldn’t be at home, we would go to her, that’s how we bonded.
Back then, there was no Internet, there was no WhatsApp; everything was on paper. If I wanted to speak to my mom, I had to call her workplace. and I’d be like, “Mama, can I speak to mama?” I would bother her if I was missing her.
If we did well at school, our rewards were a new toy from Toys “R” Us and dinner at mom’s workplace. She would get the best stuff on the menu for us.
Siony: Sometimes I would surprise them with a delayed celebration. They didn’t know I was preparing it, but then on my day off, there would be a lot of food on the table!
Ray: I remember there were a lot of celebrities who used to go to dad’s workplace. Disco was a thing back then, and the high-end venue where my dad worked attracted local celebrities. As a child, I would have a glimpse of that kind of life. It was interesting and it kind of helped me mature a little bit. I definitely wasn’t confined to just school and home.
FSI: So Siony, you built a successful career in the F&B industry from the 1980s to the millennium. What prompted you to start Siony’s Lutong Bahay?
Siony: Back in the Philippines, before my husband, my daughter, and I came to Hong Kong, I was cooking in front of my mother-in-law’s house in Alangalang in the province of Leyte. There were always long queues of people waiting to buy from me. The food wasn’t even cold before it was gone!
So one day, I started writing out my own menu, put in the prices, and gave the business a name. I decided to call it “Siony’s Lutong Bahay”. When my daughter, Jan, saw it, she was like, “Mum, what are you doing? Why is there all the paper on the table?” I said I was putting together my menu and putting my name on the business. At first, she thought lutong bahay was uncool. But I said, in our culture, lutong bahay means cooking at home for your family, and that’s what I want to do for our customers.
FSI: How did the small-scale business become the thriving business it is today?
Siony: In May 2013, my mum passed away. I prepared some food for the ceremony. After I came back to Hong Kong, I decided to start the business as a way to overcome my grief and in the name of a Filipino tradition –”Pasiyam and 40 Days: Prayers for the Dead”. As an offering, I prepared a feast and invited my friends and family. After that, I received a 40-pax catering order right away and that started the business. And then my daughter said to me, “Mama, you lay out the tablecloth and plate the dishes. I’ll take a photo.” She then started a Facebook page for me. Everyone loved the food, and more people contacted me through word of mouth. Soon, I was cooking for a lot of orders at home. My old lady neighbor said, “Your home always smells of nice food!”
Ray: We started cooking for many migrant workers NGOs like Enrich HK and Bethune House as well as local universities. We weren’t just cooking for our friends, and we were no longer a small caterer. We were getting messages about catering from people we didn’t even know. That was when we felt, okay, it’s getting quite noisy now.
Siony: I was scared because we weren’t operating commercially. I didn’t want to get arrested.
Ray: And then an international private members’ club here in Hong Kong reached out to my mum, which prompted us to find a way to scale up Siony’s Lutong Bahay.
Siony: A man from the group said his colleague recommended me after trying my food, and he wanted me to do a sample tasting for his company. I gave him my menu and asked him which items he wanted for tasting. Do you know what he said? “All the items on my menu!”
And then this guy asked me if I would accept a challenge. I asked, “What is the challenge?” He said, “The person tasting your food will be our executive chef.” I accepted the challenge, went there, and arranged the food on the big table. Everyone in the office was called to come and try my food. Because no one put out the cutlery and the plates, I went to their station – because I worked in F&B, I knew where the station was. I laid out the cutlery, plates, and napkins. And then the chef came. Once we opened the covers, the chef said, “Hmm smells good, makes me hungry.” Everyone loved the food.
Ray: The membership club then asked my mum to cook for 180 people, but here’s the caveat: they asked if her business had a licence. That’s when we decided to open a cloud kitchen. We had the business registration, the proper licences, everything checked. That gave us the confidence to finally scale up our business.
We were the first Filipino cloud kitchen concept in Hong Kong and that started just before the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of restaurants were closed during COVID and people turned to food delivery platforms. So that actually helped our business.
For the two years that we operated as a cloud kitchen, we were on many food delivery platforms, and we were reaching out to a lot of customers in the Sheung Wan area. That enabled us to scale even further. Obviously, social media was already a big trend at that time, and that’s when I came in to help market Siony’s Lutong Bahay. Our partnership, the way we work, is tradition meets modernity.
I would say we’re very fortunate that my mum gained that hospitality experience from back then. Like really old-school, foundational stuff. You don’t really get a lot of that nowadays. Many people would go to trainings and pay for all these certificates. But I think there is still that edge of coming from a time that really gave you this sort of exposure to what good hospitality is about. My mum being the image of her own business is central to our identity: it doesn’t matter where we are or what we do in terms of our business concept, when you say Siony, you know it means this uncompromising standard of hospitality.
FSI: I understand that in April 2024, the Philippine’s Consul General, Germinia Usudan, was also present to celebrate the 11th year of Siony’s Lutong Bahay, her second decade in business, and Siony as one of the Hong Kong-based Filipinas making immense contributions to various industries. How do you feel about these acknowledgments of your achievements?
Siony: I just smiled! I didn’t know what to say, but I’m thankful that they recognized my achievements.
Ray: For us as Hong Kong Filipinos, it’s really important and an honor to get recognition from the highest government authority for Filipinos in Hong Kong. We started small, just cooking for friends. And throughout the time since we started Siony’s Lutong Bahay in 2013, we’ve already had some engagements with the Philippine Consulate and other Filipino businesses that come to Hong Kong for events. We’ve done all of that. It definitely didn’t happen overnight. And I think the anniversary that we celebrated this year, back in April, was really a testament.
Siony: A testament and paying back for the people whom I didn’t know but became my customers Oh my God, there are so many of my customers!
Ray: In today’s dining scene, you hear about all these “best restaurants” or Michelin-starred restaurants or all kinds of awards. It’s getting quite saturated now. The dilemma for Siony’s is that we aren’t a restaurant and that means we are left out of review platforms.
But it’s very unconventional, what we’re doing. We don’t have a brick-and-mortar space for people to sit down, but we go to our customers’ homes. We cook for birthdays, for funerals, for weddings. We are being part of their lives in these truly intimate moments.
FSI: What are some of the memorable moments for Siony’s Lutong Bahay?
Ray: The record-breaking event in our 10-11 years of operation so far is catering for a Buddhist association in Sha Tau Kok. It was a full-day event with 400 people. There was no Filipino, all of them were Chinese, and it was amazing because it was their first time trying Filipino vegan and vegetarian food.
It’s really the people that keep our business running. With our business model, it’s hard to measure success, but we are more focused on creating an impact in people’s lives.
It all happens organically. We would provide catering for an event, and that would lead to more events at other locations.
FSI: And you did the Kamayan Feast/Boodle Fight here?
Ray: So “Boodle Fight” is actually an American military term in a colonial context. It was derived from the word “Caboodle”, which implies that you have to finish your food as quickly as possible because you’re in a war. “Kamayan” literally means eating with your hands and eating together in a communal setting. So we call it Kamayan Feast instead of Boodle Fight, but people use them interchangeably, it isn’t a big deal. But we don’t just do Kamayan Feast here, we bring it to people’s homes, too.
Siony: So we would go to their homes and show them the art of the Kamayan Feast and how we prepare the food. We were at Residence Bel-air and the people who ordered the Kamayan Feast were like, “Wow!” They didn’t want to touch the food because it was so beautiful.
Ray: The Kamayan Feasts we did this year were all for non-Filipino clients, including many Chinese families. We had two Kamayan Feasts catering at a high-end neighborhood for a Chinese tycoon. They didn’t interact with or message us on social media, but somehow they just found a way to contact my mum. We normally do the Kamayan Feast on a rectangular table, but for these clients we did it on a round Chinese table. We covered the table with banana leaves and did a nice presentation of the feast. We met their families and they were just really curious about the Kamayan Feast.
Siony: Mid-Levels is my area.
Ray: Some of our clients have Filipino helpers, and they are like, “Oh my God, we are so proud, thank you so much for doing this!” And then my mum would give them loads of food. It’s a rewarding feeling.
FSI: What are the plans for Siony’s Lutong Bahay in 2025?
Ray: We are currently located at BiteUnite Wan Chai. It is an exciting move as Siony will be launching more private kitchen sessions and more – we don’t want to jinx it so please stay tuned! This is definitely a new chapter for the brand. BiteUnite is a social hub that connects people through food, with kitchens in New York and San Francisco as well as its Asia kitchen in Hong Kong, and now Siony is now part of this exciting network!
Our main focus will still be on maintaining the brand: it’s tradition, it’s heartfelt, it’s authentic, and not just in how we prepare the food but also in how we manage our relationships with our clients. It’s important to maintain consistency and that human touch. That’s why our logo is a human hand – everything we provide through our catering service is handmade and home-cooked.
Siony: If you come into my kitchen, you’ll see that I don’t have a lot of things because I make all the sauces and spice blends myself. Because that’s what lutong bahay means – cooking at home for your friends and family.
*If you would like to have a taste of authentic, heartfelt, home-cooked Filipino food, explore the menu of Siony’s Lutong Bahay on its website or head over to Siony’s kitchen at BiteUnited Hong Kong. Follow Siony’s Lutong Bahay on Facebook or Instagram to find out what Siony and her team are up to!
