THERE are three relatively new faces at the Waterfront Airport Hotel and Casino (WAHC): Food and beverage manager Crispian I. Ho, executive chef Marcelo L. Tesalona and marketing communications officer Hannah Shanelle U. Carino. The trio are all committed to bringing the best of their ability in the operations of the hotel they now choose to be in.
Carino is new to the industry. But she brings with her the needed expertise to function as a communications officer. A communications graduate of Miriam College, Manila, she worked with various companies before joining WAHC, among them I-Fashion Marketing Co., JP Morgan and Chase Co. in Cebu IT Park, the City Sports Club Cebu and Y101 FM Station. Waterfront is her first job in a hotel and she says she has learned a lot from the manager, Benhur Caballes.
“We report to him and he is very helpful especially as I am new in the industry. It has been a fulfilling and learning experience. It’s something I want to learn more about and I intend to be with the industry for a long time. With the help of the different managers, I’ve learned how to meet different kinds of people and handling different kinds of people. There’s also the digital world, and I have to be able to communicate in that as well,” Carino said.
Tesalona is a comeback WAHC chef. He said he initially wanted to be an electrical engineer as he was always “electrocuted” when tinkering with electrical and electronic appliances. But while studying Engineering, he worked part time in a fast food outlet. When he became kitchen supervisor, he realized he did not want to become an engineer but a chef. He shifted to Hotel and Restaurant Management in Lyceum of the Philippines University (which named him one of its outstanding alumni in 2012, along with the likes of Sen. Panfilo Lacson), and worked his way up the culinary world: from “seasonal contracts” with the Manila Hotel, to Le Souffle in Greenbelt, the Subic Bay Yacht Club and then back to Manila Hotel, and then Edsa Shangri-La and then with Waterfront in 2005. Since then, he has been with various Waterfront hotels, starting with Cebu City, then with G Hotel in Manila as executive chef, then WAHC, then Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel, and now finally back with WAHC.
Chef Mar says to be a chef, one must have the passion for it otherwise he will never become a good chef, He must have the passion to learn other cuisines, to improve his skills, to respect the way other chefs do their dishes because one dish can be cooked in different ways. For WAHC, he says the company directive is to have Filipino cuisine geared to a Filipino’s modern taste.
“We have a group of executive chefs that conceptualizes what will be in the buffet. Our difference with other buffets is our emphasis on freshness of the food. We don’t use anything ‘instant.’”
Ho is a Singaporean who obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Miami, as well as a diploma in marketing and public relations from the Thames Business School in Singapore.
“I started my F&B career as a waiter around 1989. I really enjoyed what I did as a waiter, serving people, seeing them happy and satisfied. So I guess it has stuck with me ever since.”
After graduation, he became restaurant manager of Grand Copthome Waterfront Hotel, Singapore. The he moved to Meritus Negara Hotel as bar and restaurant manager, then to Traders Hotel as divisional food and beverage manager, then to Mount Faber Leisure Group, then as group director of F&B for West Coast Golf Management Company and then with Farfalle with its Taiwan, Shanghai and Beijing branches. He became executive assistant director F&B for Jade Gallery Hotel in Chengdu, then assistant general manager at Cours Et Pavilions and then F&B director at to Wanda Vista. He then arrived in the Philippines for Fontana Hot Springs Leisure Park as assistant general manager in Clark, Pampanga where he met his wife. From there, he came to WAHC.
Ho easily learns languages and speaks Mandarin Cantonese, Malay, English, Hokkien, Taiwanese, Teochow and Tagalog.
“Konti lang as I can’t tell the difference between Bisaya and Tagalog. I’ll just pick it up as I go along.”
Since Ho’s arrival in WAHC in November 2017, he has introduced something new to the WAHC buffet: the hotpot. The idea is to lure to the buffet Southeast Asians who may not be familiar with Filipino cuisine but who love the hotpot concoction and it has certainly worked, according to Carino and Tesalona who said they may soon also serve ala carte.
During the interview with the three, it was evident that each individual was passionate with their respective jobs and share the passion Waterfront asks of them: to serve guests not as guests but as family.