Titan Business Spotlight: Sift By Laureana
When we think about cafés, a lot of examples come to mind and there are no shortages of cafés we can find here in the Philippines. Your “go-to” cafés are dotted across the country such as UCC, Tim Hortons, and Starbucks, in which the majority of the population purchase their daily cup of coffee or may even grab a snack to go. But have you ever considered trying something new? A breath of fresh air; something that is different from the rest? Then Sift By Laureana will surely deliver!
Sift By Laureana is a cafe located in Mckinley Hill, Taguig. It was recently launched by Kristian Gildo Cayabyab, an Enderun Alumni, in March of 2021. Sift was created by Kristian in hopes to launch his very own business.
Kristian was a culinary arts student from the batch of 2013. He was just like any other college student when he started, setting his own goals and dreams but he had no idea how to execute them. During his freshman and sophomore years, he described himself as a “baby,” not knowing how to groom himself and he also reminisced about that during those times. He partied a lot as well. However, during his junior and senior years, he started to pull himself together, setting higher standards and awakening the true potential within him. To challenge himself, he participated in various school organizations. The most notable being when he joined the Enderun Student Government as a senior batch representative. Under the leadership of Joey Tuason, they have approved several changes such as implementing pedestrian crossings near the school’s vicinity.
For his first internships, he worked at Del Monte’s Research Kitchen in BGC, Taguig. Working alongside Chef Victorina—the chef at that time in the research kitchen. Kristian realized the importance of accounting and finance in conjunction with the research and development of dishes. Kristian also emphasized that in the test kitchen, there wasn’t any dinner service involved. Unbound by time constraints, working at the research kitchen focused on Kristian’s creativity and execution towards creating new dishes, thus it refined his expertise in that area. Though he spent his first internship here in the Philippines, he spent his second internship in the US. He worked at Terranea Resort in California, grinding 18 hours a day in the kitchen. Thinking back, Kristian thought that the internships were strenuous, but that’s the beauty of it, preparing him for what was to come in a real-world scenario. “You either come out of Enderun as a weak person or a strong person”, Kristian added. Kristian came out of his internship with his new resolve to provide jobs for Filipinos.
Even before Kristian graduated from Enderun, he was already working at Barcino in Rockwell. Having celebrities as regular customers during that time, Barcino in Rockwell was quite busy. Incorporating what he learned in Enderun, Kristian was helping out with the day-to-day costing, deliveries, and inventory management. He was also working as the line cook in Barcino aiding with the service. However, his turning point in the industry was when he entered the kitchen of Pablo Bistro. Seeing the potential in him, he was handpicked and trained personally by Chef Amado Garcia, who was the current corporate chef at that time. Kristian was given the hardest station at that time— the fryer in Pablo Bistro. The fryer in the bistro was an important asset to the kitchen as they are responsible for the frying, roasting, and grilling of the foods that the bistro caters to its customers. After 3 months, he was promoted to a higher position as a Chef de Partie, trusted by Chef Amado and his sous chef, they established a tight-knit relationship to move the bistro forward. As the newly promoted Chef de Partie, he was trusted to do most of the kitchen operations such as costing, handling events, and taking care of the supplies.
Unfortunately, the pandemic struck down. Due to its effects on the economy, Pablo Bistro had to shut down, but its sister company Cartel Deli remained operational. As months went by and the cases eased up in the Philippines, Pablo Bistro operated once again. However, the termination of Chef Amado Garcia was brought to light. The company was planning on handing the position of Cartel Deli’s head chef to Kristian. A tempting offer for Kristian, yet he politely declined. He contemplated that his purpose of staying at Pablo Bistro was to learn from Chef Amado Garcia teaching him the craft of being a chef and he also recalled that his main goal was to provide jobs to Filipinos. Therefore, after a suggestion from his father that he should start his own business, he left his job at Pablo Bistro and this built his courage to fuel his desire to open his café, Sift By Laureana.
Due to his experience working in different restaurants, Kristian did not encounter any problems regarding their menu, the design, and the market. Thanks to his involvement in Enderun’s student government organization, he was acquainted with Megaworld— offering him a discount on the rent of the restaurant. Kristian received a lot of support from his family and his peers from Cartel Deli and Barcino. However, a challenge crept in that stood between Kristian and his dream of opening up a new café. Before he could open Sift, Kristian had to tend and conform to a handful of government permits and legal requirements. Due to this, Sift began its services purely online in December of 2020, holding 10 caterings during this time as they plan the construction of the restaurant by January of 2021. Thankfully the launch was successful and it opened its doors to the public by March of 2021.
Sift By Laureana was molded by Kristian to cater to the countless BPOs, the Enderun students, and the locals from Mckinley Hill. However, Sift takes it a step further from its competitors as its location is placed in a way that it’s located around the BPO buildings and student condominiums, so that as soon as they go down to the lobby, it’s only a few meters away to get their freshly-grounded coffee and wholesome food that Sift has on their menu. When Kristian was still an Enderun student, he recounted that after he would go out from a nearby café, he would smell like coffee. Taking this into consideration, Sift has a top-notch exhaust system that even after spending a few hours in the café, you would still go out without the smell of coffee.
As an advocate of locally sourced ingredients, Kristian sources his coffee beans such as their Robusta from Batangas and Arabica from Davao. Sift has an open kitchen where they cook and bake the day-to-day dishes and pastries from their menu which are made fresh daily. Sift mainly focuses on the service, as Kristian implies, “our staff will always greet you with a smile as soon as you walk in.” It is also worth mentioning that pets are welcome in Sift, which a lot of cafés and restaurants do prohibit. In this day and age, some individuals practice a sustainable lifestyle or may have to follow a strict diet regimen, however, Sift makes sure that they can cater to these markets to stay ahead of their competitors. A great example of this is their vegan pastries and their sugar-free cakes that are available in alignment with whatever a customer had requested. Because of how welcoming Sift is in the local neighborhood, most of their consumers are their returning customers tagging them as a ‘friendly-neighborhood café’. Even if businesses are suffering right now due to the pandemic, Sift is still operating in full capacity reaching the point where they have expanded their café to the adjacent store to implement an al fresco dining experience.
Sift also excels when it comes to their food. Every week on Mondays and Tuesdays, Sift puts up a new dish which the regulars look forward to, such as the crispy pork Kare-Kare, beef-shank caldereta, or even the Indian-styled chicken curry. Kristian puts a lot of care and effort when developing these dishes for their customers which Kristian describes as “my playground” since this tests his creativity whenever he is trying to develop a new dish to put as a weekly special. Sift is also famous for its regular dishes and pastries on their menu, such as their ube-cheese pandesal, truffle mushroom pasta, sisig sandwich, and their authentic carbonara. Kristian also emphasized that their portion sizes are also large to assure that their customers get what they have paid for— good food for a good value and price.
A piece of advice that Kristian wants to give to future chefs, leaders, and entrepreneurs is, “Talk to yourself. Figure out what your goal is and make sure to picture if that goal is doable, and if not, how can you make it doable?” Kristian also highlights that a person must not wait for his goals to come to them, but they must chase after them to achieve their objective. With the times that we are currently living in, the world constantly changes. If we’re fixed in one place without trying something new or even trying to be flexible, we may find ourselves struggling to fit in the current scene that is presented in front of us.
To keep up-to-date with Sift By Laureana, you may follow their social media pages through their Instagram and also their Facebook page.
