“The restaurant serves as a catalyst for reconnecting with culture, whatever stage you’re at in that journey.”
Tito Boy Restaurant is the very first Philippine restaurant in the south end of Winnipeg, an intergenerational and intercultural meeting space where they celebrate not only food, but the connections made around the dinner table.
“My dad, who grew up on the farmlands of southern Leyte, always loved cooking. He brought that dream with him when he immigrated to Canada with my mom in the late 70s,” says Tito Boy owner Jackie Wild. “But, much like many folks who have immigrated from around the world, my parents had to make some tremendous sacrifices to stat a new life here in Canada.”
Wild’s father, Agustin Doming, along with his new bride Jean Doming, started their new life in Canada with very little money and very few resources or connections to lean on.
“As newcomers, my parents didn’t have access to the same type of intergenerational wealth that many more established families do. This made it difficult for my dad to start up his own business, and hence, he had to put his dream- to open a restaurant- on hold. Eventually, he ended up going to culinary school in the 90s. But at that time, I was really young, and he had competing familial commitments and priorities. So again, he put his dreams on hold, and ended up working as a health care aid for 16 years.”
It wasn’t until Wild was on maternity leave for the second time that she and her father, who was now months away from retiring from his job in healthcare, decided to form a business plan to make his lifelong dream a reality.
Within six months, they had put together a business plan, secured financing, leased a building, renovated their new space, hired staff, and trialed all their menu items. They opened their doors in October 2022.
Wild jokes that, being an only child, her parents really “put all their eggs in one basket” by trusting her with their dream.
“As a second generation Philippine-Canadian, my parents made many sacrifices to ensure I had a comfortable life. Without the cultural resources and social safety nets we have available today, they had no choice but to assimilate into what the Canadian culture looked like at the time.” Wild continues. “Thankfully, we live in a different time now, and can reconnect with culture and celebrate our unique ethnocultural identities in such meaningful ways.”
Wild says that, regardless where someone may be on their cultural reconnection journey within the Philippine community, that they will be welcome at their restaurant.
“It’s not just about the food we serve- it’s about what the space represents, who we welcome into the space, and the tapestry of different pieces that make up the safe space that we’ve built.”
Looking ahead, Wild hopes that Philippine businesses will continue to spread across the city.
“There is this incredible movement taking place where Manitobans have a strong desire to experience different cultures and cuisines. Now, the Philippine food movement is an impressive force, not just in North America, but around the globe. A lot of the foods and flavors familiar to our community have become mainstream. For example, many people wouldn’t recognize now widely-loved flavours like ube- the sweet purple potato that’s indigenous to the Philippines- a mere decade ago.”
As the president of the Manitoba Filipino Business Council, Wild hopes to encourage young entrepreneurial women, Filipina or otherwise, to go for it.
“I’m the owner of a brick-and-mortar business in a very high-stakes industry that has a history of wildly high failure rates,” Wild notes. “So what I repeatedly told myself when we first opened our doors was that, regardless of whether we’re open for a day, a week, a year, a decade, an entire lifetime, an entire generation… the fact that we followed through and made a dream a reality… that’s how I will define success. Put less pressure on yourself to make things work, and celebrate all the great things that have come of it.”
If you’re new to Philippine cuisine, Wild recommends their pancit- stir fry rice noodles with fresh vegetables, a savory sauce, and lots of garlic- an ingredient found in many of their dishes. There’s also their bestselling lumpia- crunchy egg rolls filled with ground pork, water chestnuts, carrots, and, again, lots of garlic.
For anyone with a more adventurous or seasoned palate, she recommends an ube latte served either hot or cold, or the ube mochi waffles- a sweet, glutinous rice flour batter infused with ube extract to create a gooey interior and crispy exterior.
Having been in business for over two years now, Wild hopes that the business will continue to thrive, and that more and more people will come to love the flavors and culture of the Philippines.
Learn more about what Tito Boy Restaurant is serving in your city and beyond on their website, or find them on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.