From founding schools, opening brilliant restaurants, to battling a drinking problem, chef Rob Pengson opens up about his life to Tatler
Chef Rob Pengson is a veteran chef, who has been on the Philippine culinary scene for many years, both on-screen and in the kitchen. Known for concepts like The Goose Station, Niner Ichi Nana, Hyve, and now Beso Beso, Rob continues to show us how much he loves food in more ways than one.
To him, education is vital to building the strong backbone that is needed to survive and thrive in the restaurant industry. So much so that this gourmand has founded three schools to date: Academy For National Culinary Arts, Global Academy, and Aleanza, a unique hybrid platform.
Since 2019, he has been hyper-focused on making sure Aleanza would be a well-oiled machine. “Aleanza [which began in 2018] has two major business models: school and full-on bonafide F&B [operations]. At first, we thought we were so clever being the only ones to combine these two in this way... but when COVID hit I remembered Mike Tyson once said “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” shares the chef.
We all needed the reminder that we, in our industry, are colleagues first, and business competitors second