She’s perhaps one of the few renowned chefs today who’s equally at home with pastries and hot dishes. Having fed Pope Francis and an ASEAN delegation consisting of 1,500 people, including several heads of state, she has nothing more to prove. But none of these would have been possible had she chosen to stay within her comfort zone.
Chef Josefina “Jessie” Sincioco, a 36-year veteran in Manila’s thriving culinary scene and perhaps one of the few chefs out there who know her pastries as well as her hot dishes, is no stranger to such life-changing forks. During an earlier part of her career, Jessie, then dubbed by the now defunct Hotel InterContinental Manila as the “first Filipina pastry chef,” had to choose whether to stay or to go.
Fresh from a four-month intensive training course in Europe, Jessie was raring to go back to work supposedly as the InterCon’s new pastry chef, a job whose responsibilities she had already assumed months before. “Until then, the title they gave to me was never given to a Filipino, more so a Filipina,” she says. “Pastry chefs in the country then were all Caucasian men.”
Unpleasant surprise
When she got her appointment papers, however, she received a rather unpleasant surprise. Notwithstanding all her efforts, she was still only good enough on paper as an assistant pastry chef. In hindsight, the appointment was quite strange, even laughable since she was assisting no one.
Despite the salary increase she got, “I felt discriminated upon because I’m a woman.” Unhappy at how top management treated her, she decided with a heavy heart to eventually leave behind her staff and the hotel, which gave her, a banking and finance graduate, a break in 1983.
“I really thought I’d grow old in a hotel,” the bubbly Jessie shares. “Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself going into business. As I started to analyze my life, I realized that what happened back then was part of God’s plan for me.”
These days, as president and CEO of her own company, Jessie’s responsibilities go beyond the kitchen to include running a thriving catering business and three Metro Manila-based restaurants such as Chef Jessie Rockwell Club, Chef Jessie @ BGC and Chef Jessie’s Place. The latter, a five-story building in Makati, doubles as the company’s commissary as well as an events place with three function rooms.
On any given day, she and her 60-person staff attend to five to eight catering events. To date, the biggest event she took on was the ASEAN welcome dinner in 2017 at the SMX Convention Center, wherein she and her team fed several heads of state, various government officials, Secretaries and ministers from member-countries as well as their staff. All in all, they prepared food for 1,500 people.
Another set of Jessie’s staff, close to 90 people, work either in her three restaurants or at the back of the house. A brother, niece and cousin have since joined Jessie in helping her run the thriving enterprise.
First-ever pastry shop
Chef Jessie’s Place also houses her first ever pastry shop, which offers all sorts of goodies, including upscale versions of such bakery staples as ensaymada and pan de coco.
“I also did ensaymada balls filled with different stuffing. People from near and far are flocking to us. My ensaymada and pan de coco are bestsellers,” she declares with child-like glee.
Hard work, long hours and dealing with all sorts of people have never fazed her. Nor does standing up to anyone, including her superiors, “if I know I’m right.”
An assistant pastry chef who couldn’t restrain himself from cracking green jokes, for instance, got a piece of Jessie’s mind less than a year into her job as a pastry assistant. That she was the only woman in a kitchen composed of men made her actions all the more noteworthy.
“I already told him nicely to refrain from doing it even if the green jokes weren’t directed at me,” says Jessie in a mix of English and Filipino. “He did try to restrain himself whenever I was around. But it was so ingrained in his system because the kitchen, before my arrival, was an all boys’ club.”
Soon enough, the fellow was at it again. And this time, Jessie would have none of it. The poor guy probably didn’t know what hit him. In her anger, a crying Jessie, after confronting the man, left the scene. Close on her heels were Billy King, then the InterCon’s executive chef, and the Swiss pastry chef. After Jessie told them what had happened, the perpetrator was reprimanded.
The forks or, as Jessie, who had the rare privilege of cooking for His Holiness Pope Francis during his four-day papal pilgrimage to the Philippines in 2015, puts it, God’s plans for her have yet to stop manifesting themselves after her fateful decision to hand in her resignation letter.
From banking to baking
If someone were to write her biography, the fact that a commerce graduate, who, soon after graduation, dreamt of working in one of the tall buildings housing some of the country’s leading banks along Ayala Ave., became one of the country’s most formidable chefs instead, deserves an entire chapter.
She almost did get to work in a bank, but it wasn’t in what she considered then as the “New York of the Philippines.” Instead, to her disappointment, she was to be assigned in Binondo. Jessie had a month to wait before she could officially join the banking world.
But Jessie’s aunt, whom she considers her second mother, entered her name in a baking contest to be held at, where else, Hotel InterCon. To cut a long story short, Jessie, who had no formal training baking cakes, bested the competition. As part of their prizes, she and the other winners were to fly to Japan for a ten-day training program.
What’s more, the hotel’s resident manager was so impressed with Jessie that he offered her a job in the hotel’s pastry kitchen.
“I had to forget my plan of working in a bank because after the competition, the winners, including myself, had a month-long on- the-job training before going to Tokyo,” Jessie recalls. “And since Tokyo Disneyland was newly opened that time, we tried out almost all the rides!”
Even when she left the InterCon and was contemplating on what to do next, God’s unseen hand seemed to be guiding Jessie. When the other Metro Manila-based hotels learned of her resignation, they lost no time wooing her to join them. But the Bulacan native wanted a change in scenery. And she almost got it.
Hyatt Terraces Baguio was offering her a nice package. Apart from receiving a considerable salary, she’d finally get the elusive title she so richly deserved—the hotel’s pastry chef. That was in 1989. Or, if you still remember your history, a year or so before the historic and deadly North Luzon earthquake, which flattened countless buildings in Baguio and elsewhere, including the Hyatt.
Jessie was all set to go, but her aunt, who had always been supportive of her decisions, put her foot down. No! Even her mother was against it. Surprisingly, Jessie, who’s always been headstrong, listened. And her decision to stay probably saved her life.
“I saw how serious they were not to let me go,” says Jessie. “I was already a young adult then and could have done anything I wanted, but I listened. If it were up to me, I would have gone to Baguio. Pero, baka patay na ako ngayon (But I probably would have been dead by now).”
From pastries to hot dishes
Finally, her shift to hot dishes, something which she loathed cooking as a youngster because “I hated the smell of onions and garlic while sautéing,” was another fork in the road for Jessie brought about by necessity.
For more than a decade, she partnered with the Irishman Billy King, who was like a big brother to her, and the late German chef Andreas Katser in running such restaurants as Truffles and later Le Soufflé. While the two men took charge of all the hot dishes, Jessie did the pastries.
“But since I was working with two of the hottest celebrity chefs in town during those days, they weren’t around much,” says Jessie with a chuckle. “I got left behind most of the time to man the restaurant.”
Not that she minded. What initially bothered her was being called by the likes of Imelda Marcos and the Zobels asking her for “chef’s recommendations,” from soups and salads down to the main course.
“Since no one was around, I had to face them,” say Jessie. “What do I tell them when hot dishes weren’t my forte. So, I was later forced to study each item on the menu and how it was done.”
Eventually, the restaurant’s kitchen became her playground. During her interactions with Billy and Andreas, Jessie, a quick study, was also carefully observing them. Little by little, she gravitated to doing hot dishes herself, especially when either Billy or Andreas wasn’t around.
When a client says “ikaw na bahala” (it’s up to you), Jessie would come up with something that was sometimes not part of the menu to surprise the customer.
And, of course, the ultimate highlight of her career so far, which, based on what’s written on her business card, she isn’t shy to declare to the world, was that of being “The Papal Chef” who cooked Pope Francis’ breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Papal Nuncio’s residence during his brief visit here.
Much has been written about how Jessie, instead of merely grilling a chilled slab of beef, decided to slow roast it in the oven for six hours not knowing how Pope Francis preferred his steak. But when the waiter serving the pope told Jessie that he wanted it “alive” or cooked on the outside and warm, tender and bluish in the center, she nearly jumped for joy, as she did the right thing to prepare it.
“I was chosen by the Papal Nuncio and was highly recommended by Archbishop [Luis Antonio] Tagle,” she says. “Still, I couldn’t help but feel the pressure. Imagine, I’d be feeding the Vicar of Christ!”
But suddenly, all her doubts vanished after that incident. Her talents in the kitchen were further reaffirmed by the special guest himself who later saw Jessie outside the Papal Nuncio’s residence shooting him with her iPad while he was on his pope mobile en route to say mass at the Luneta.
When he learned from Archbishop Tagle that Jessie was the chef behind the amazing slab of steak he had for lunch, Pope Francis reached out and, holding Jessie’s hands, was thanking her profusely: “Grazie mille! Delizioso! (Thank you very much! Delicious!)”
Then the Holy Father, letting go of Jessie’s hands, further gestured and, this time, said in English, “[The steak is] Like the cow. Moo!” An awed Jessie was beside herself with joy. Up to this day, she still can’t fully explain how she felt at that very moment. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that for the devout Catholic chef, it probably felt like being complimented by God Himself.
