I caught up with Chef Morris Danzen Catanghal at a Boodle Brunch during the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. A boodle brunch is based on a traditional Filipino way of eating: food laid out generously on banana leaves, eaten together, by hand. It’s casual, communal, and built around connection, and for Morris, it’s a reflection of how he grew up eating. The brunch was also a collaboration with Filipino food content creator Abi Marquez, for whom the day marked a personal milestone; her first time cooking service in a professional restaurant kitchen. Morris was clearly proud to be part of that moment, guiding her through the intensity of cooking for a room full of people while watching her passion translate from screen to service. The food stayed true to its Filipino roots, with gentle nods to Australian produce, making the whole experience feel generous and thoughtful. Morris moves between kitchens and cultures with ease. He cooks modern Italian at Buono in Parkdale, while CMD Supper Club gives him the freedom to explore Filipino flavours, techniques, stories and fusion with collaborators. Talking to Morris at the end of the service, what came through most clearly was his gentleness and generosity as well as a genuine pleasure in cooking for and alongside others.
Hi Chef Morris. I feel like we’ve been trying to sit down together for a long time. Today, I was at the Boodle Brunch, which is what we were going to talk about all those months ago. Boodle Brunch is based on a traditional way of eating in the Philippines, with your hands, on a banana leaf. When would you do that?
Oh, there’s actually not a certain time for doing it. If everyone is free and it’s an afternoon and we have nothing to do, and we’re all together, then we just suddenly pick some banana leaves, and cook something, and dump it in the banana leaves, and eat all together. For us, it’s a norm. It’s not something special. But I guess I can say that it’s special because we eat all together. The spirit of Filipino dining is about sharing the food. No one eats alone in the Philippines. It’s so bad in my in my culture that you eat alone. Somebody has to eat with you. We’re very hospitable and family oriented. For example, if we are family of six and my brother is not there, we won’t eat until he comes. That’s the idea of the Boodle Fight, it’s when a family gathers, we’ve got a lot of banana trees in my country. This is like a vessel and normally we do it under a tree or near the beach, just to relax and chill
The food that we had today, would that be representative of Filipino food?
95% is Filipino, and we just incorporated some Australian produce and herbs and spices, especially, for example, the lamb. We did the lumpia or spring roll. Normally we’d do it with pork, but to make it more familiar to Australian, we use the wattleseed lamb. And the prawns, we basted them with lemon myrtle oil. I think by mixing it with Australian produce, we make it more familiar to people. Filipino cuisine is not yet widely known known here.
Filipino food is really interesting because it has influences from quite a few different cultures: Malay, Chinese, American.
We were colonised by a few people. And every region in the Philippines has different food because the Philippines is composed of thousands of islands. Each island has different produce and a different cultural of way of cooking. For example, in the south, they’re closer to Malaysia, so they got their flavour profile from Malaysian people and a way of cooking as well. In the islands, we have more seafood, like the ceviche, and we were colonised by Spanish people for hundreds of years. In the north, we also have like more of the braising kind of dishes and adobo, more Spanish influenced cuisine. It’s composed of fusion dishes. That makes it more a unique cuisine. A good example is Adobo. Adobo is actually a technique of preserving food because we cook the meat with vinegar and garlic and peppers and bay leaf, and that’s it. That was before the Chinese. When the Chinese came and they brought soy sauce, that’s the time we started to use soy sauce to cook the adobo. And you won’t believe that every family has different recipes of adobo.
That’s my dream. I don’t dream of having a restaurant. I dream of travelling the world and cooking and learning from other chefs and collaborating with other chefs. If you have a bigger radius, you can share your food with a larger quantity of people, rather than having a restaurant. I love to explore. I think it’s the main reason I’m in the industry.
Morris Danzen Catanghal
Today you made a dream come true for Abi Marquez. She is amazing, and I was lucky enough to speak to her last week, but she does so much content creating at home with food and she’s always wanted to try being in a restaurant kitchen. And you made that come true for her?
That’s actually one of the reasons why I’m so happy, because I’m part of her journey, and this is her first time doing a service in the real professional kitchen. It’s hard to serve 180 people for the first time in your life, but I saw her passion. I saw how she’s so serious about what she’s doing, and she’s so focussed and the passion is there. I think she deserves everything that she has right now and if she was to move into this as a profession, I think she will nail it as well. Why not?
I think you have a lot of passion as well. You’re so busy. You’re cooking out at Buono in Parkdale, and you have your own pop-up as well where you’re doing Filipino food. So you’ve got Italian food and Filipino food on the go.
At Buono, I cook classic Italian food in a modern way. But then I wanted to bring my style from my restaurant in Sicily. I was doing a fusion of Filipino and Italian cuisine in the south of Italy. After we closed down the restaurant, I wanted to bring it here and share my flavours to people, and it’s my outlet as well, like a playground, to practice my creativity and still think of other ways to present Filipino food in a different way. And what I love about it is that the people in Melbourne are just, you know, like they’re so keen to try anything new. I thought of doing this supper club because I love meeting new people. Before coming to Melbourne, I already travelled to many places for work. I worked as a musician as well before being a chef. I was doing photos and videos. I like anything to do with art. My philosophy is that life is short, so you have to make the best out of it. I don’t want to stay on one stagnant path, I like to explore things and see the other side.
Is it every Monday night?
We do it either every Monday night or a Thursday night, every month.
How do you find places to work out of?
I work with someone to find locations. Some people recommend restaurants and some places are very keen to collaborate, like Nine Yards. We did the Noche Buena here last December. That’s why we’re here again because they love the vibes, they love what we’re doing. Apart from that, we’re inviting a lot of chefs internationally. That’s my dream. I don’t dream to have a restaurant. I dream to travel the world and cook and learn from other chefs and collaborate with other chefs and if you have a bigger radius, you can share your food to a larger quantity of people, rather than having a restaurant. As I told you, I love to explore. I think it’s the best reason why I’m here in the industry.
I had to learn how to cook and I was using wood to cook rice and whatever produce we had. We were so poor, we only ate once a day. As a young kid, it’s not hard, it’s your norm. It’s everyday life. I grew up with that and unconsciously, I was being trained because I got limited produce. I got limited stuff, so whatever was available, I had to cook it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t eat. I had the sense of urgency and hunger.
Morris Danzen Catanghal
You didn’t always think you’d be in this industry, did you? When you first started out, it was just a means to an end.
It started out when my dad became blind. I was 12 or 13 years old. My younger brother and I had to take care of him. I had to learn how to cook and I was using wood to cook rice and whatever produce we had. We were so poor, we only ate once a day. As a young kid, it’s not hard, it’s your norm. It’s everyday life. I grew up with that and unconsciously, I was being trained because I got limited produce. I got limited stuff, so whatever was available, I had to cook it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t eat. I had the sense of urgency and hunger. But then I wanted to pursue my first love, which is fine arts. I love fine arts. I used to draw, I used to paint. But then it was so expensive in the Philippines. I thought of pursuing multimedia technology. That’s why I studied it and I became a freelance photographer and videographer and I was also a singer. My sister asked me to go and work with her in China. I decided to go there to save money, go back to Philippines, open my own photography shop, and that’s it. But then I met my wife, she’s Italian. And then suddenly we planned to go to Italy, to have a new life and build a family. When I went there, it’s quite hard to find a job for videography, photography, and musician. Luckily, my in-laws owned a Trattoria. That’s the time I changed everything in that restaurant to a fusion of Filipino and Italian.
It’s great that they were open to that.
Business at that time was really bad. So they wanted something new. At first people hated it, because I lived in a Sicilian town with 44,000 people, and they’re used to eating traditional Sicilian food. But then I introduced sweet potatoes, coconut milk, calamansi; using Italian techniques, but Filipino flavours.
Could you find those things there?
Yes. But I had to travel one hour away to get those ingredients. It took off, but after I won the competition with Gino D’Acampo.
I saw that. It was on Italian television. What made you enter that?
My mother-in-law is my number one fan. She pushed me to enter the competition. I said, alright, no promises. I’ll go there, but I won’t promise anything. Until I won the competition and I was supposed to work for him for a couple of years as a head chef in his restaurant. But it didn’t happen because of Brexit and the pandemic. So I continued working at our restaurant. The competition helped us to build my brand and the restaurant’s brand because the people started to come. Heaps of people from America and other parts of Italy. The bad thing was that the pandemic closed us down and obviously after that, it wasn’t sustainable anymore, and that’s the time we decided we had to move on and find something else. I’ve got two kids, so I have to work. I had to find something else. Fabio Magliano, from Buono called me and asked if I wanted to work at Buono with the working holiday visa. If it works out, it works out. I had reached out to him because I knew someone who had worked for him and I emailed my resume. He called me for an interview and that’s what happened. I don’t know, maybe it’s destiny. I’m destined to be here.
I didn’t dream of being a chef, but I’m here and it has been almost 15 years that I’m in this industry, and I love it. It’s not work for me. It’s within me.
Morris Danzen Catanghal
What a story. Someone’s going to make the film of your life. It’s very cinematic. So obviously you love being in the kitchen now. What is it that you love about hospitality and cooking?
Aside from bringing joy to people and meeting new people through food. It’s probably creating new dishes because I see it like as a painting. The way I compose my painting, how I do a cover of a song, you still have the dynamics, you still need the contrast, you need the fine lines and the hard lines. It’s the same with cooking. It needs to have so much love, and colour and art to it before you can touch someone’s heart with your food. And technically, it’s still a form of art. So that’s why I enjoy it.
You obviously enjoy learning as well and always, um, and always growing your skill. It gives you a reason to come to work, doesn’t it?
Correct.
You’ve had lot of different experiences. What would your advice be to a young person starting out?
My advice? Be prepared. To be honest, it’s not an easy industry. You have to love it, because I think this is not a job, this is not normal work, like you want to get a good salary and that’s it. It’s a lifestyle. If you have it, you have it, if you don’t, don’t even try it because it’s so hard. You have to be passionate about it. But then if you know that it’s one of your gifts or talents, why not? Try to absorb everything and work with the greatest people as much as possible; work with the people who have the most intelligence about the food industry and be humble all the time. I think you’ll go wherever you want to go. It depends on your own goal. This applies to any industry. I didn’t dream of being a chef, but I’m here and it’s almost 15 years now, that I’m in the industry, and I love it. It’s not work for me. It’s within me.
Buono, Parkdale and CMD Supper Club