WHERE there’s smoke, there’s fire, but in Oldtown Kitchen + Grill, there’s always barbecue.
The varying food choices of consumers paved the way for the establishment of more dining places. But with experimental food gaining popularity in Davao City, finding a restaurant that serves flavorful Filipino dishes has become a challenge.
Hector Clyde Hong, Oldtown Kitchen + Grill Owner and head of operations, saw this as an opportunity to introduce a new restaurant, one that brings families and groups of friends together. The idea was inspired by his family’s weekly cookouts, where everyone gathered at the backyard to bond over beer and barbecue.
The perfect dining place to relive Sunday cookouts with the family, Oldtown Kitchen + Grill offers pork, chicken, and chorizo barbecue, grilled tuna, bangus, fish fillet, salted egg chicken, chicken curry, dinakdakan, pakbet, lechon kawali, spareribs, chopsuey, sinigang, tinola, bulalo, and balbacua. To create an atmosphere of a family backyard, Oldtown serves combo meals good for two or six persons. Everything in the menu is meant to be shared; for a budget of P1,100, you can treat a group of six to a tray full of pork, chicken, chorizo, and tuna panga with rice and six bottles of softdrinks. Aside from these Filipino favorites, Oldtown also offers affordable Chinese short orders, kakanin desserts (a specialty of Clyde’s mom, Glenda), and pastries from Arielle’s Sweet Street (baked by Arielle, Clyde’s fiancée).
In his attempt to capture the simplicity and flavor of the old Davao, Clyde named the restaurant Oldtown. As a family man, Clyde dreams of having a family hangout place for the Generation X, the people who grew up in the old Davao.
As a millennial, Clyde admits that among the challenges of running Oldtown is attracting the millennial population. To overcome this, Clyde commits to reinvent his ideas for the restaurant, without sacrificing the concept of a family barbecue place. He also envisions Oldtown to be a restaurant for average Joes, a place where people can order without fear of being intimidated by the menu.
Nestled within the nook of Metrolifestyle Compound, located along Jacinto Extension street in Davao City, Oldtown also is partially hidden from view. But just months after it opened on April 2, 2017, customers welcomed Oldtown with warm interest. Regular customers, even tourists, consider Oldtown as their second kitchen away from home.
When you arrive at Oldtown, Clyde is the first to greet you, aside from the delicious aroma of barbecue. Although he is busy making wedding preparations (he’s getting married in a few weeks!), he tries to be as hands-on as possible to give his customers service that’s nothing short of excellent.
“We aim for Oldtown Kitchen + Grill to be heavy on the palate but light on the pocket,” Clyde and Arielle shared.
Oldtown Kitchen + Grill is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m./5 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Sunday-Thursday), and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m./6 p.m. to 11 p.m. (Friday to Saturday).