Rekado Davao

The House of Glass

A tribute to a mother's recipe box, scaled to feed a Davao Sunday.

On Jacinto Extension, where the old Davao streets still smell of calamansi and woodsmoke, a two-storey "house of glass" catches the afternoon light. This is Rekado Filipino Comfort Cuisine, opened in 2015 by sisters Tisha Benedicto-Sebastian and Pauline Benedicto as a tribute to their mother Lena's kitchen. Pauline, fresh out of culinary school, was handed the keys with a simple brief: cook the food we grew up eating, but make the flavors louder.

The name says it plainly. Rekado is the Filipino word for the seasonings, herbs and aromatics a cook reaches for instinctively. Inside, the picture windows, high ceilings and industrial-finished floors frame plates that are unapologetically homestyle. Kare-kare arrives in a pool of peanut sauce thick enough to coat a spoon. Bangus is steamed open with young coconut tucked inside.

What makes a Davaoeño drag an out-of-towner here is the honesty of it. Rekado does not chase fusion or fine dining. It serves the Sunday lunches Mindanao families know by heart, dressed up just enough to feel like a celebration. A decade in, with a new SM City Davao branch (2025), it remains the city's most reliable bowl of nostalgia.

Mother in the Kitchen

A line that has followed Rekado around for ten years.

"You can taste the mother in this kitchen," one Davao food blogger wrote after an early visit — a line that has more or less followed Rekado around for a decade. Regulars at the Jacinto branch describe the place the same way: portions built for sharing, kare-kare worth ordering twice, and a kalderobo that arrives still bubbling in its cast-iron skillet.

As Woman Elan Vital put it, the food is "not overly fancy but satisfying in the best way" — the kind of meal that ends with everyone reaching for the same plate of suman con leche.

What to Order

Lena Benedicto's recipe box, sharpened for restaurant volume.

The kitchen reads as a love letter, scaled up but never thinned out. Kalderobo, the house's most-photographed plate, is a slow-cooked beef stew that splits the difference between caldereta and adobo, served sizzling in a cast-iron skillet. Pinaputok na Bangus wraps milkfish around young coconut meat and steams it in banana leaf — a quietly Mindanao move, leaning on the islands' coconut groves.

Kare-Kare is unfussy and generously sauced; Lechon Kawali is hacked into shards with the skin still cracking. Vegetables get equal billing: Gising-Gising (winged beans in bagoong and coconut milk) is the spicy counterpoint the menu needs, while adobong kangkong and ensaladang talong round out the table. For dessert, the Suman con Leche — sticky rice under ube butter, toasted nuts and caramel — is practically a second meal.

Mains sit in the ₱200–800 range, with most family-style dishes around ₱350–550, deliberately portioned to be shared. The sisters describe their approach as "modernizing mom's recipes" — same heirloom bones, intensified seasoning, plated for a dining room rather than a fiesta table.

Atmosphere & Practicalities

A house that fills with families by day and birthdays by night.

The Jacinto Extension flagship is locally nicknamed the "house of glass" — a two-level building wrapped in picture windows, with high ceilings, exposed industrial flooring and warm wood accents that catch the late Davao sun. By day it fills with families and office lunches; by evening the lighting drops to a softer amber and the crowd skews to multi-generational dinners, birthdays and balikbayan reunions. Music stays low and acoustic — not a place to be loud, but loud is welcome.

Service is famously warm in the Davao way, with staff that will steer first-timers toward the kalderobo without being asked. The newer SM City Davao branch (opened 2025) trades the glass house for mall-side convenience but keeps the menu intact. Price band: ₱₱ — roughly ₱500–900 per person for a shared meal. Reservations recommended on weekends and during Kadayawan; walk-ins generally accepted on weekdays.