Recommended Video
This is an excerpt from MEGA’s Dec 2025-Jan 2026 Features
Across continents, cultures, and culinary scenes, Cheryl Tiu has cultivated a life anchored by food. The culinary consultant, internationally recognized food journalist, entrepreneur and one of World’s 50 Best Restaurants & Bars’ celebrated Tastehunters, has taken her journey from vibrant Sunday family lunches in Manila to the global stage, where she champions underrepresented cuisines and fosters cultural exchange through food.
For Cheryl, celebration isn’t confined to calendar dates or formal ritual. It’s alive in everyday gatherings, shared meals, and acts of hospitality that transform ordinary moments into lasting memories.
Building memories of home
Coming from a food-loving family, Cheryl grew up with the warmth of weekly Sunday lunches with her extended family. These gatherings weren’t merely about sharing food, but about building a support system where cousins were friends and each meal was an occasion. “Each of my dad’s siblings took turns hosting, whether at their homes or a chosen restaurant, and all those remain meaningful to me,” she shares. These familiar, lively meals taught her that a true celebration is about belonging and togetherness—sometimes more than about the food itself.
Her deep-rooted appreciation for familial connection and tradition has fueled Cheryl’s global culinary adventures. Now based in Miami, she explores food cultures from the heart of Philippine cuisine to distant regional flavors few have discovered. One of her current passions is Mindanaoan cuisine from the southern Philippines, which she finds both rich and underexplored. “The region is so vast and there’s so much to learn and discover,” she says, naming dishes such as tiyula itum (braised beef or goat soup) and pyanggang (chicken dish with a super flavorful sauce made of burnt coconut) she encountered at Michelin-recognized Lampara—and praising Filipino-American chef Aisha Ibrahim’s work introducing palapa, a traditional Maranao condiment made with scallions, ginger, turmeric, chillies, and toasted coconut, in her events.
Championing cultures, cuisines
Cheryl’s personal advocacy centers on shining a spotlight on underrepresented cuisines and correcting misconceptions. For Filipino food, she notes that global awareness varies widely. While staples like adobo, lumpia, and pancit are familiar in cities with large Filipino communities (like Los Angeles and San Francisco), these flavors remain unfamiliar in places like Miami. Cheryl views this disparity as a huge opportunity, requiring tailored strategies for different markets.
“In cities and regions where people are familiar with Filipino cuisine, the expansion opportunities are huge: fine dining, regional Filipino cuisine, niche Filipino dishes,” she explains. “For other markets that don’t have this abundance, the education aspect, relating it to what they are already familiar with are key.”
One of the biggest misunderstandings Cheryl encounters about Filipino food is the stereotype that it is greasy, fried, unhealthy, and should be inexpensive. This reductive view overlooks the cuisine’s complexity and versatility, from rich regional variations to ingredients and techniques that merit respect and premium positioning globally.
Connecting communities, celebrating cultures
Cheryl’s openness to culinary innovation extends beyond tradition to how food experiences themselves are created. She points to a recent dining experience at Papa’s Bombay in Mumbai, a small 12-seat chef’s counter recognized by Time Magazine as one of the world’s greatest places for 2025. There, “fine dining” is reinvented as a thoughtful yet playful 13-course dinner party tailored to each guest’s preferences—they are asked about their favorite cocktails and songs before they arrive. Beyond the food, patrons engage with fidget spinners, magic tricks, and personalized touches that break down formal barriers and invite joy.
Through her events and consultancy platform Cross Cultures, Cheryl propels the exchange of cultures through food, highlighting regions often overlooked. Her mission is not only to find new tastes but to change perceptions by bringing stories that challenge stereotypes and expand palates. She recalls starting the platform after visiting Ethiopia in 2015, surprised that many doubted whether the country even had food worth noting. This fueled her drive to use food as a bridge for greater understanding and celebration. “I was surprised because it’s one of the best cuisines in the world!,” she says.
Over the years, Cheryl has been advocating for Georgian cuisine and wines, and more recently, Ecuadorian cuisine, Kazakhstan and their unique Korean-influenced cuisine called Koryo-saram, “It’s a culinary tradition developed by members of the Korean diaspora that live/lived in the former USSR that’s very different from (South) Korean food as we know it,” she shares.
Read more about Cheryl Tiu’s tasteful adventures in food and celebrations in MEGA’s Dec 2025-Jan2026 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Images courtesy of CHERYL TIU. Photographed by JERICK SANCHEZ. Makeup and Hair by LINDSAY CO ALOG
