happy TOGETHER

At Michelin-starred KASAMA in Chicago, FilipinoAmerican chef TIMOTHY FLORES finds his culinary voice and tells his own story of home.

- LIZ YAP WEE

EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL ABOUT MARCH 2020-where they were, what they were doing, how their plans got derailed when the entire world shut down. For chef Timothy Flores and his partner, pastry chef Genie Kwon, fate seemed particularly cruel. They'd just passed city inspections and received their business license for Kasama, the bakery and modern Filipino restaurant they had envisioned opening in Chicago, when all dining establishments were ordered to close for two weeks.

In the face of extraordinary uncertainty, without knowing how long the pandemic would last and how long it would take for the industry to recover, Flores and Kwon soldiered on in the pursuit of a long-held dream. Building the restaurant during the pandemic was certainly anything but ideal, but it was still, on some level, a blank slate. Like any chef worth their salt, they could improvise.

Pivoting to a takeout-only business had the unexpected benefit of simplifying a few elements of the process. "We didn't spend money on tables or chairs since we had no idea when we'd actually be able to serve guests indoors," Flores says. They found themselves buying gloves instead of glassware, plexiglass barriers instead of plates. In the worst of times, the silver lining remained: "We always tried to keep our heads up despite the situation, because we were still doing something that we love." It's his determination that has constantly seen him through, even as he took a circuitous path to becoming a chef.