Chicken adobo, one of the best known dishes of Filipino home cooking. Photo: Obsidian Soul / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Kristine Subido moved to the United States with her family when she was 8, and she has kept her childhood in the Philippines close ever since, in the kitchen and out of it. One reason she opened her own restaurant was the realization that most of Chicago’s food scene knew very little about traditional Filipino cooking.
Subido has been a professional chef since graduating from culinary school at Kendall College, but she has been cooking for much longer. As a child she often made dinner for the whole family, first helping her parents and eventually running the meal herself. She dabbled in the arts, but cooking always won out.
Why chicken
At Pecking Order, Subido set out to make traditional flavors approachable. Her answer was chicken. It takes on marinades well, it shows up in nearly every food culture, and it carries the family marinades she grew up with. Diners who might hesitate at an unfamiliar dish already know what to do with roast chicken.
Many of the recipes trace back to her family, and she arrived at the final versions through trial and error. Some dishes went through many rounds before she was satisfied.
Regulars and roots
The hardest part of running the restaurant, she says, is the same as anywhere: getting customers to come back. She works constantly to build a base of regulars, but she draws a line at changing the concept to chase trends. Giving guests what they want matters to her, but staying true to the food matters more.
For Subido the restaurant is a way to share the dishes of her childhood with a city that is still learning them, one plate of chicken at a time.
Linh Tran-Whitaker covers Argyle Street, dining and community life.
