It’s hard to imagine a world in which The Fattened Caf doesn’t exist. The Cherokee Street cornerstone originated as a pop-up in South City, eventually growing into a residency inside the fondly remembered Earthbound Beer. Nowadays, the restaurant serves as a beacon of sorts, marking St. Louis as a destination for Filipino flavors.
The Fattened Caf.
Tying it all together – and forever cementing The Fattened Caf into the city’s diverse food landscape – is a brick and mortar at the corner of Cherokee and Jefferson, close to where it all began. Add to that a café partnership with Washington University in St. Louis and a booming packaged longganisa business, and it’s clear that founders Darren and Charlene Young have built something that balances mass appeal with true-to-roots staying power.
Part of what makes Filipino culture and food a good fit for St. Louis is its emphasis on the sharing of experiences. In some ways, the barbecue culture there mirrors that of the United States. “Filipinos are family-oriented and community-oriented,” Charlene says. “Ihaw, or grilling, is an example of that culture.” In the Philippines, grilling is meant to be simple and affordable. And since it’s one of the oldest cooking techniques around, wood, coal or coconut husks and fire are all you need to get started. It’s also convenient, as an abundance of meat can be prepared at once. “Meats are cooked on an open flame, and folks gather around the grill – whether it’s in the family home, at the beach, out on the street or over a pit while the whole pig is roasting,” Charlene explains. “It doesn’t even need to happen for a special occasion; you’ll find grilled street food in every corner, city and region in the Philippines.”
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The Fattened Caf co-owner Darren Young with Kamayan guests.
Her partner, Darren, who does much of the grilling on a 1904 Pits-brand custom grill out back, has had a lot of practice grilling over an open flame. “It’s a better technique that yields better flavor, but it’s difficult – you have to maintain the heat and fire,” he says. “You have to make sure you’re not overcooking anything. It’s not, like, set it and forget it.” Grilled Filipino street food is just one example of the country’s barbecue offerings. Because grilling is prevalent in Filipino culture, grilled meats are often prepared during fiesta season, as people go door to door to eat with their neighbors. “During a Kamayan – formerly known as a ‘boodle fight’ in the Philippines – family and friends gather around a table wrapped in banana leaves covered in food,” Charlene explains. “Party-goers use their hands to eat an overflow of grilled meat and sides, swapping stories and dishes among friends.
A Kamayan is the feasting experience itself rather than a particular event or fiesta, [which are] often correlated to saints’ holidays.” In other words, you can have a Kamayan during a fiesta, but they aren’t one in the same.
Of course, The Fattened Caf’s menu is a callback to the food Charlene grew up eating in the Philippines. But it’s easy to see how it also reflects both her and Darren’s individual lived experiences and identities. The food considers her background as Filipino American and his as African American, resulting in cuisine that’s completely singular. “My cousin Mon-cho would pick me up from school [in the Philippines] – in Poveda in Quezon City – almost every day, and almost every time, he would take me to get sisig,” Charlene remembers. “It was my absolute favorite dish growing up, and so naturally, it was one of the first dishes I introduced to Darren when he visited my family in Manila, and it was one of the first dishes we put on our menu when we started doing pop-ups around South City.”
The sisig is a product of Luzon, in the northern part of the country; it’s made from chopped parts of a pig’s head and liver, seasoned with kalamansi – a sweet-tart citrus fruit native to the Philippines – and served with onions and peppers. “At the restaurant, we grill our mari-nated pork belly, chop it up and then top it with red onions, peppers, chicharron crumble, spiced vinegar and a citrus mayo,” Charlene says. “It’s one of the most comforting dishes on the menu.” It’s actually one of the most comforting dishes on the planet: The char and smoke from the grill pair perfectly with the flavorful, fatty pork belly, which is mellowed out with onions, peppers and citrus and set off with cooling cucumbers and pickled cabbage.
The smoked longganisa, which has become a favorite in part due to its availability in grocery stores around St. Louis, is another menu staple. “Darren and I took a weeklong long-ganisa-making class during a visit to the Philippines,” Charlene says. “We learned how to make different variations of Filipino sausages and fell in love with it. We developed a recipe that resembled our favorite hamonado-style longganisa that we tasted in Cebu, a city in the Visayas region.” This technique involves simmering meat – often pork – in a sweet and savory sauce, typically made with soy sauce and pineapple juice, which is what the Youngs use to flavor their version. During the pandemic, they took a month to perfect their craft: grinding and seasoning the meat, casing and tying it, smoking it and packaging it up for the store. “It was and still is truly a labor of love,” Charlene says. “Today it’s one of our top sellers at the restaurant.”
If you’ve seen photos of Fattened Caf dishes or visited yourself, you’re probably familiar with the third dish Charlene points to: the chicken piyanggang. An impressive hunk of grilled chicken presented on a banana leaf alongside java rice and pickled veggies, it’s one of those show-stopping dishes that you’ll catch a craving for and go back to order again. “It honors the culinary contributions of the Tausug people of Mindanao – the southern region of the Philippines,” Charlene explains. “This dish is a specialty, and its history for the Tau-sug people dates back to the 1400s.” The chicken piyanggang is in a league of its own, particularly because it’s mixed with ground burnt coconut, giving the dish a blackened appearance and deep, smoky, nutty flavor. Darren smokes the chicken and pours a burnt coconut gravy on top as well.
The sides, prepared by Charlene, might sound familiar: tomato ensalada, java rice, roasted okra, bok choy, fruit – the list goes on. “The foods are very similar [to a barbecue in the U.S.], as are the sides,” she notes. “But a Kamayan in the U.S. has evolved as part of the Filipino diaspora experience. In the Philippines, it’s an everyday tradition, still practiced … with less focus on aesthetics and more focus on the act of sharing. A Kamayan in the U.S. focuses heavily on the feasting experience and has become a gathering place for Filipino Americans to re-experience the community they left behind or reconnect them back to their ancestral land.” These “cultural shifts in the diaspora,” as Charlene calls them, are very important to her; she’s always looking for ways to give more visibility to the Filipino Ameri-can identity – in cooking and in life.
For Darren and Charlene, there’s more to The Fattened Caf than smoke and seasoning. It’s a reflection of both Filipino and American food culture – a chance to show off the lush, layered flavors they’ve created and, above all, a way to honor the communal spirit at the heart of Filipino dining. “We want Filipino barbecue and The Fattened Caf to be part of the conversation when it comes to St. Louis barbecue. There’s no reason why it can’t,” Darren notes. “We’re just excited to keep going, keep exploring. It’s great to be a part of something so special.”
The Fattened Caf, 3405 S. Jefferson Ave., Gravois Park, St. Louis, Missouri, 314-899-0088, thefattenedcaf.com
