Abi Marquez

Conversation with a chef: Hi, Abi. It’s such a privilege to have you on the podcast. I’ve been following your Instagram and, congratulations, You’re so successful.

Abi: Thank you. Thank you.

I was going to ask what happened to get you to over a million viewers, but actually, I already know, it’s your bubbly personality, and you seem to have so much fun doing what you do.

Definitely.

So, this started as an online project over lockdown. Is that what happened?

It was during my last year, or last semester in college, where during the pandemic, we had to do classes at home. I was at home doing classes and I could cook for my family. I had access to the kitchen. One night we had pasta for dinner instead of rice because in the Philippines, when you’re making pasta, the next thing that somebody says is, whose birthday is it? Because it’s not usual for us to have non‑rice for our meals. I already had a good background in making videos, and I love cooking, so it was just a random idea to film this pasta recipe. I posted that without thinking much about it, and that video went viral. Being the nerd that I am, I said, wow, if I can make this viral, maybe I can do it again. I totally nerded out, watched the video and said, okay, this is the light that I used, the hook or the script that I said for the first line, I analysed the formula. I made a couple more videos and every single video that I put out just went viral. I found a formula accidentally for what worked. And since then, it has been a no‑brainer for me that this is something that I should be doing. It makes me happy, makes other people happy. That was four years ago.

It’s huge. And then you were on the Netflix docuseries: Being Gordon Ramsay. What was that like?

The Gordon Ramsay collab has just been my biggest dream. I would say he’s my childhood hero and we have always been vocal about wanting to work with him, even before he had his restaurant in the Philippines. When that moment came, , we were one of the first who heard about the opportunity and that Netflix show. We were only told that they could be filming and then they asked for our consent to appear on that show, but we didn’t really know if we were going to appear, they could have totally cut us out of it., so to see that they kept the footage, they kept me in there and hearing about what Gordon Ramsay was saying on top of our clips saying that his role has evolved from just being a great cook to now being a mentor and empowering the next generation, that hits really hard because for me. I’m 25 years old. I started doing content at 22. I’ve always looked for someone to mentor me and teach me about this industry; how I can protect myself, how I can improve on my craft, how can I have fun with this? And, 4 years later, I think, who I am now is because of all the supportive chefs, supportive fellow creators, who have taught me this is how you should do it. Most especially my management, , Nima, shout out to NYMA back in the Philippines, they have guided me through all of this and I would say they were really critical to making that Netflix appearance happen.

I think it’s interesting that you’ve had all that support from chefs, and you are getting more into cooking, because you didn’t really set out to necessarily cook, did you?

I was studying hospitality and restaurant management, but definitely the program that I took in college was more about the business side. Our subjects were purchasing, marketing, housekeeping, and then the fundamentals of cooking. But I would say my cooking really was something I developed myself by cooking every day. In all eras of my life, food has always just been there.

It’s crazy to me that Gordon Ramsay loved my lumpia. Coming into that shoot, I thought, this guy will not pretend to like my stuff just for the video, because he’s known for being very honest and frank. But I’m really proud, kilig, we call it; super happy, that even after the shoot, he had another piece of the lumpia. So I really know that he enjoyed that. I’m super proud of that.

Abi Marquez, Lumpia Queen

I watch your videos and they are so much fun. When I was little, I imagined I wanted to be a food presenter on TV, and I would make food and pretend I was looking at a camera. You must really have to think about the camera when you’re cooking, you are thinking about people watching you. There’s so much involved with putting together one of those videos. How long would it take you to do one of your cooking videos?

There are three stages of doing it: the preparation, the actual filming, and then post‑production. The filming, takes minimum of 3 hours. It really depends on the recipe because I don’t really do a lot of cheating, slash switch‑outs, like in TV shows when they film, “this is what it looks like after 30 minutes.” I do that when I have a collaborator and it’s very time‑sensitive. When I started making content, the food that I made was something that my family was going to eat for dinner. It depends on the recipe, but definitely more than three hours per recipe. And then the preparation is…I’m not sure how long it would be in hours, but it would definitely involve researching the recipe, developing what could make this the best recipe, for example fried chicken, then making the script, which I think is the most difficult thing to do. On social media, the way we consume content is holding our phones vertically and just swiping up to the next content. The trickiest thing to do is to work out how to capture that audience in the first four seconds and make them stop scrolling and watch this video. For me, it could easily take an hour just to think of the first frame or the first line. Obviously, right now I’m a little bit faster, but it does take a long time. And then the editing. I remember just sitting down in a dark room, editing a one‑minute video for 12 hours. It could be that long or for up to two days.

Is it important to you to showcase Filipino food?

It’s been really important, but I guess it just came naturally to me to use Filipino food as the dishes to feature in my videos because it’s literally the dishes that I know how to cook. Growing up, we didn’t really go out much or travel much. The first time that my family went on a plane my mother was already in her 40s. I was in my 20s. So, in terms of influences in my cooking, the biggest influence would just be my mom, who cooked Filipino food for us three times a day. Any other cuisines that I would know like Japanese, Chinese, they would all be the ones near me or in the Philippines. Naturally, when I made these food tutorials, the ones that I know how to teach would be adobo, bistek, and menudo, things like that.

How did you get the title Lumpia Queen?

It’s so nice. I love being Lumpia Queen. Lumpia Queen came along when I did a really fun experiment. It was after attending a party where I unofficially catered. I like to do a s’more session after every party that I cook for. I had leftover marshmallows, chocolate, and lumpia wrappers, and I just saw them together in my house. It was very clear in my head. The question was, what happens if I fry the marshmallows in lumpia wrappers? I’m always curious about food. And to me, it was regardless, if this fails or not, I want people to see what happens. So I did that video, and that was the fastest video to go viral. There were 1,000,000 views in two hours. I just had this crazy feeling in my stomach which is the same thing that I feel whenever I do something bold and it succeeds. It kind of hurts in my tummy a little bit. I thought, okay, this is good. I’m going to do this.

After that video, and, spoiler alert, frying the marshmallow in lumpia wrappers failed, I opened it up and there was nothing. It was hollow because the air from the marshmallows had gone and the sugar all just melted. So that video failed. But what happened next was the most interesting. Everyone just engaged with it. People said it failed because I didn’t freeze the marshmallows. It failed because you should have doubled your wrapper. I thought, okay, since you all think you are right, I’m going to try to do all of your suggestions and let’s see, just to prove you all wrong. . And so every day that week, I posted the same experiment: frying marshmallow in lumpia wrappers. A week later, I started going back to the usual content that I do, but that series made such an impact that the comments on my usual dishes would be, What if you wrap that in a lumpia wrapper? And so every time that I would film a dish, another food tutorial, I would film another version where I wrap it in lumpia. And it’s just been a thing with me and my viewers and they called me Lumpia Queen.

I love it because you’ve created a community of people who adore you and feel like they’re part of things. You made a beef Wellington lumpia for Gordon. And he loved it.

He loved it. It’s crazy to me that Gordon Ramsay loved my lumpia. Coming into that shoot, I thought, this guy will not pretend to like my stuff just for the video, because he’s known for being very honest and frank. But I’m really proud, kilig, we call it; super happy, that even after the shoot, he had another piece of the lumpia. So I really know that he enjoyed that. I’m super proud of that.

Lumpia are a little bit like spring rolls, but the wrapper is different to a spring roll, isn’t it? It’s made with a different ingredient.

In the Philippines, it’s really a super, super thin pastry made with flour, salt, and water. Sometimes a little bit of oil. But it is different from the usual egg roll wrappers or the thick pastry ones that you would usually find in Chinese restaurants and in the US. But definitely lumpia stands out because of the wrapper and the filling being majorly meat. When you bite into a Filipino lumpia, you should expect brown, meaty, a little bit of minced carrot, but it’s definitely going to be 90% ground pork, usually. That’s what we call lumpia Shanghai. But actually, lumpia, I would say, it’s a way to cook something. It’s anything wrapped in lumpia wrappers and usually in logs, because we do have different varieties. We have Lumpiang Sariwa (fresh spring rolls) and Lumpiang Togue (fried bean sprout rolls). That’s lumpia, for anyone who doesn’t know.

Now you’re here in Melbourne for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. How did the collaboration with Chef Morris come about?

I’ve known Chef Morris for maybe one to two years, but this is definitely made possible by my management, NYMA and Raine Cabral. In 2024, I was nominated for a James Beard Award for media and went to Chicago and ran into Raine. Raine has this mission to strengthen the Filipino community in Australia and share Filipino stories. She’s out here listening and trying to just check what opportunities we have? I’ve worked with Raine before to do a collaboration with Chef Morris in the Philippines, and Chef Michael also, who’s here in Melbourne. When we heard about the Food and Wine Festival, we just gave it a shot and tried to present or pitch this idea of a boodle fight or kamayan style, which means in the Philippines, we eat on banana leaves and use our fingers to eat. That’s something unique that we have out there. We did not expect that they would approve this concept, and I’m really so excited. On the 28th, Chef Morris and I at Nine Yards are going to bring that culture here, the Filipino culture of banana leaves and eating with your hands. Thanks to Raine and NYMA.

I love it. I’m coming next week, and I can’t wait. I’m very excited. What should I expect? I expect banana leaves and eating with my hands, but what else? Lumpia?

Yes. Lumpia. Definitely. I don’t think I’ll allow you to eat in my dining room without lumpia. You will be using your hands, eating on banana leaves. It’s a multiple‑course menu using Filipino dishes as the base, but also incorporating Aussie produce. In the past few weeks, I’ve been busy trying to test‑kitchen kare‑kare with wattle seed, for example, and I know here in Australia you love brunches. Longganisa is a sausage that we have in the Philippines. We’re going to have Eggs Benedict with longganisa and banana ketchup, so you can expect to try flavours that we have every day in the Philippines, but also a little bit of familiarity with all of these Aussie ingredients like lemon myrtle, wattle seed.

It’s fantastic that you’re doing that. It is so great to use products from the land here, I think. I think more chefs need to do that. So for someone to come from overseas and do that, it’s fabulous.Thanks, Abi, I can’t wait to try it for myself.