HONG KONG—IT WAS MANY SUMMERS AGO when four boys were sent on what seemed like culinary boot camps in Manila.

Odd, it seemed, for a band of brothers to take up cooking instead of sports or arts or music, but mom Sonia Dator was adamant. She was an Ilongga cook whose home cooking had been so popular with neighbors and friends in Quezon City that they often commissioned her to cook for their parties.

“I wanted them to learn to cook and prepare for their own birthday parties and also help me with the occasional catering services” so that they would learn the value of money and enterprise, Sonia explained.

And so every summer, she would enroll her boys in culinary classes. During the school year, she would ask the teachers in Claret School to allow her sons to sell their products—yema, cookies, butterscotch, — polvoron and other pastries—Classroom for DH, etc

Decades later, the Dator brothers—Jose Alfonso, Jimson, Jay and Jonas—finally cooked up something huge. And what they serve this part of the world has been sizzling for years.

In November 2002, the Dators opened the Culinary Arts Centre-Multicare in Hong Kong with their pooled resources, the only culinary school owned and operated by a Filipino family here.

Tucked in an old building on Wing Lok Street, Sheung Wan, the CAC resembles a typical Filipino kitchen brimming with colorful spices, meat cut posters, and an array of kitchen treasures.

The Dators imported equipment from the Philippines because they wanted to make sure the kitchen setup where their students would undergo training could be replicated in their homes back in the Philippines.

The CAC is a classroom for domestic helpers on Sundays, and bank managers, flight attendants and other busy professionals on weeknights.

It has graduated over 1,200 students, mostly Filipino domestics, since 2002, and has evolved from a strictly cooking school to a resource center for livelihood and entrepreneurial skills.

From only two classes—cooking and baking—in 2002, the CAC now offers at least 17 two- to 10-month courses like Asian and Western cooking, fruit and vegetable carving, menu planning, wedding planning, computer literacy, and even agribusiness.

Chefs on Parade medalist

Its Multicare program, handled by registered Filipino nurse Emie Skinner, offers first aid, aromatherapy massage, caregiver, reflexology and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation courses. At least six former students are now working in Canada.

While the CAC initially involved the entire Dator household—with dad Jimmy in charge of the administrative tasks and mom Sonia handling some courses—of the four brothers, only Jay remains focused on the day-to-day running of the center.

“Culinary schools have become a trend now, but we have been here even before that,” said Jay, CAC program director. “Some people go into this business like they’re just playing, but we don’t. This is a school, so even we, the staff, continue to upgrade our learning as well,” he said.

These recent summers, Jay would either fly home to Manila or the United States to update his culinary skills.

Jay and Jimson were both teaching in an international school and doing some training for another Filipino school offering computer courses here when they decided to start the family’s culinary business.

A graduate of hotel and restaurant management at the University of Santo Tomas and silver medalist in the 1994 Chefs on Parade in Manila, Jay recalled how maids studying at the Filipino school would often ask him where they could take cooking lessons.

The queries prompted the two brothers to do their own feasibility study on the need for culinary training, finding out that many Filipino helpers here lacked not only culinary skills but housekeeping skills as well.

“It’s very unfortunate,” said Sonia, who teaches lutong pang-carinderia and meat processing. “They do not know how to cook! You’d think because they are employed in households, they would be good but all of them know only adobo.”

She noted that the Filipino maids here were more adept at Chinese cuisine because that’s what they have to cook for their employers. Their families back in the provinces, however, do not always appreciate Chinese food.

This is one reason they study at the CAC before they go back home for good, Sonia said. Others are keen on putting up a carinderia” or bakery when they retire from domestic work here.

Said Jimmy: ” “Basta pagkain, hindi ka malulugi kasi lahat kumakain, e.” (So long as it’s food, you won’t lose money because everyone has to eat.) The family has several success stories in its book to prove that.

Students’ success stories

One student opened her own café in Miami, Florida, another a fusion restaurant in San Francisco, and yet another a 24-hour carinderia in Tondo that was such a big hit, she opened another one in Pangasinan.

There were countless others who now have their own bakeshops. Some who are still in Hong Kong have so impressed their employers with their cooking that the employers agreed to shoulder the cost of their training at the CAC.

“The return-on-investment may not be as high as other businesses, but this is more of a service to the Filipino community anyway,” Jimmy said.

“We have just enough profits to sustain the business. As you see, we are still here because there is learning satisfaction among our students,” he added.