Pride And Glory

Filipino immigrant and home cook extraordinaire Leo Fernandez talks to us about his time on MasterChef New Zealand and waving the flag of Filipino cuisine.

- Chino L. Cruz

Given the speed of MasterChef New Zealand finalist and first runner-up Leo Fernandez’s trajectory in New Zealand’s dining scene, you’d be just as surprised as we were to find out he’d only started cooking back in 2008, when he first moved away from home.

Leo’s food journey, it seems, started more as a matter of necessity than anything else. “Hindi pa ’ko nagluluto noon eh. In my family, it’s always been my mother. Once I migrated, though, one of the things that lessened my homesickness was food,” says Leo. “Para sa akin, food is comforting. When you’re away from home, that’s when you really realize how important food is.”

Though Leo only officially started cooking after arriving in New Zealand, he admits that his grandmother had a bigger role in teaching him how to cook than he had originally thought.

“My lola is a good cook,” he says. “When we were with her, she would force us to watch her in the kitchen. I just realized that was her way of imparting her culinary knowledge to me. When I started to cook, I realized that everything she taught me was still fixed in my mind. I could still remember how to cook her dishes, and that’s really where it all started.”