How Zubuchon came to be

Joel Binamara had no plans of getting into the lechon business.

He was a food lover, no doubt, as his gastronomic exploits in cooking and scouring for food
finds are famously chronicled in his blog Market Manila. When he is not writing content for his blog as Marketman, Binamara was occupied with his real estate business in Cebu and Bohol.

However, as fate would have it back in 2008 during times of digital interconnectedness, his
posts documenting his attempts at replicating lechon the way his grandmother used to make it would somehow find its way to the New York City production and research offices of a TV show. Binamara admits in a tribute he wrote in 2018 for the show’s star, the late chef and raconteur Anthony Bourdain, how the day they spent together taping for his widely-syndicated show “No Reservations” altered the course of his life with the birth of a successful food venture—Zubuchon, a chain of restaurants in Cebu and Metro Manila serving traditional Filipino cuisine and, of course, the lechon that Binamara made Bourdain try that day they taped the show in Cebu. “Best pig, ever!” Bourdain exclaimed, not only twice during dinner, according to Binamara, but also scribbled on one of Bourdain’s books.
With this vigorous endorsement reverberating across millions of viewers worldwide, the demand for Binamara’s lechon was just too overwhelming to ignore. However, that was not the only ace Bourdain dealt Binamara. It was during those phone conversations between Marketman and the producers of the show prior to their Philippine expedition that set BInamara on this course.

He narrates in his article for news.abs-cbn.com: “At one point in the telephone conversation,
someone in the background asked, ‘Is that the pig guy?’ When the producer said yes, that man grabbed the phone and said, ‘Hi, this is Tony, would you cook a couple of pigs or lechons for us if we come to visit you in Cebu?’ I replied that I would be happy to accompany him to a myriad of purveyors and specialists in Cebu as I wasn’t a chef nor did I even cook lechon other than for personal consumption. But he insisted, and said if I was the one who wrote the posts on lechon, then they would really appreciate it if I would be the one to cook lechons for them.” If Bourdain had not insisted that Binamara prepare the lechon for them on that episode, then the influential host would not have tasted the origins of Zubuchon to begin with. Perhaps, he would not have uttered those three magical worlds that catapulted Philippine lechon to the world stage.

Binamara said it best: “It is one thing to have made a lasting impression on a man like Anthony Bourdain, but what is more impressive is the attention, focus and impact he has had on highlighting Philippine cuisine for a global audience, bolstering national pride in our own dishes, and providing decent employment for hundreds of individuals.”