By Marco Shalma.
If you want to feel Filipino New York, walk through Woodside on a Sunday. Kids chasing each other between church services. Titas carrying trays wrapped in foil. Uncles debating Manny Pacquiao while someone grills pork skewers outside a sari-sari store. Filipino immigrants began arriving in significant waves after the 1965 Immigration Act, many working in nursing, hospitality, and service jobs that kept the city functioning long before anyone credited them for it. Their food followed, patient, resourceful, layered, and built from the instinct to feed your people well.
Adobo is the north star. A dish shaped by pre-colonial preservation methods and later influenced by Spanish vinegar-braising techniques. Every region has its version; every family guards its ratio of vinegar, soy, garlic, pepper, and bay leaf. When Filipino families settled in Queens, Jersey City, and parts of Brooklyn, adobo became the dish that made apartments feel like home again. It didn’t need spotlighting. It needed a stove and time. In New York, adobo was the thing waiting on the counter after a double shift; warm, steady, and honest.
Lumpia brings the celebration. Spring-roll-style wrappers filled with seasoned meat or vegetables, rolled tight and fried until the crunch becomes its own language. Lumpia traces its lineage to Chinese influence in the Philippines, but Filipino cooks elevated it with flavor and technique. In New York, lumpia became the icebreaker at potlucks, the star of birthday parties, the snack that disappears before people even take their coats off. If someone brought lumpia to a gathering, you understood that the night was going to be good.
Then there’s kare-kare, the dish that shows the depth of Filipino cooking. Oxtail or beef shank simmered in a rich, peanut-based stew, served with vegetables and bagoong on the side. Kare-kare has Indigenous roots, shaped by pre-colonial cooking traditions and expanded during Spanish rule. In New York, it became the centerpiece dish for families hosting relatives, celebrating milestones, or fighting homesickness. Kare-kare requires commitment. And Filipino New Yorkers kept that commitment alive in kitchens big and small.
Filipino New York grew through community networks. Church groups, neighborhood restaurants, OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) circles, pop-up kitchens, potlucks that doubled as family reunions. Food became a way to teach kids Tagalog, share stories of home, and build stability in a city that rarely slows down long enough to notice. And when Filipino chefs began opening restaurants in the 2010s, New York finally caught on to what diaspora kitchens had been doing for decades.
To taste the lineage today, visit Kalye bringing Filipino street food energy to the Lower East Side. Stop by Kabayan in Woodside for lumpia that hits with the right crunch. And head to Ihawan for Filipino food that hasn’t been softened for trends.
Now you know: Filipino New York didn’t ask for a spotlight. It earned it. One pot of adobo, one plate of lumpia, one bowl of kare-kare at a time.
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