The heritage town of Dupax del Sur in Nueva Ecija, home to the oldest church in the province, the San Vicente Ferrer Church, now has a fine dining destination which gains popularity as a perfect travel destination for foodies with a sense of wanderlust.
City-bred entrepreneur John Lacanlale Danao, co-founder and managing partner of the farm-to-gourmet table The Green Oasis of Dupax, is proud to have pioneered haute cuisine in the closely-knit community where farmers trade produce and even give them for free during bountiful season, instead of letting the crops go to waste.
Upscale dining, he said, should not be exclusive to the people in the metro. “Let our folks in the province experience gustatory delights at a price made affordable by the vastness of local produce the province offers,” he said.
“We believe people will patronize good food without regard to the price as long as they get good value for what they pay for. We bring the finest to this part of the province so that people will be educated on how and what fine dining is about,” he said.
The Green Oasis of Dupax is a haute cuisine restaurant at the heart of a three-hectare ancestral farmland of the Danaos in the north. The restaurant offers a unique dining experience, working on the fusion concept of Mediterranean and Filipino cuisine.
Using the harvest of the day, The Green Oasis of Dupax offers a wide range of culinary dishes from entrees to beverages and desserts, made of crops produced from the Oasis Farm and other gardens in nearby sitios.
As the restaurant has high demand for basil and other aromatic leaves, it cultivates its own herbs on a designated garden. Various vegetables like lettuce and eggplants are also grown in greenhouses next to the restaurant and the Oasis Kitchen. All produce are sustainably-sourced and 100-percent organic, giving premium to healthy eating.
The restaurant supports local farmers by buying their produce and adding value to crops. At the Oasis Kitchen, the one-of-a-kind tomato pie and tomato ice cream are made from tomatoes of Ambaguio, a nearby municipality known for its teeming tomato industry.
Another unique item on the menu is the ginger ice cream, with the main ingredient sourced from the farmers of Santa Fe. There are also the cinnamon onions rings sourced from the farmers of Aritao.
The bounty of local farms is more than enough to supply daily provision for the restaurant. Even edible flowers have a niche in the restaurant’s unusual menu.
Danao said the restaurant strives to come up with a peculiar menu to be a crowd-drawer to both local and foreign tourists.
“We’re actually laying the foundation to make Nueva Vizcaya a gourmet dining destination. This is the only way we can help elevate the status of farmers here. We boost the livelihood of the farmers, we boost the local economy in the province,” he said.
He takes pride in having contributed some of the unique food preparations. The artisanal ice cream collection has unusual flavors like Roselle Hibiscus or Gumamela ice cream, Ginger, Malunggay, Tomato and Citrus flavor. There is also the Blue Ternate juice, one of the unique concoctions under the edible flower series.
House coffee is sustainably soured from Talbek, a sparsely populated hilly barangay producing quality, organic green beans. The restaurant does its own roasting of Arabica and Robusta varieties and creates its own blends.
One of the popular fusion dishes is the signature Tempura Pinakbet, and another trademark delicacy is the rabbit’s meat menu—Rabbit Sisig and Rabbit Salpicao.
“Our mulberry cheesecake and roselle hibiscus cheesecake are crafted using sweet potato as base for the crust. We think this one-of-a-kind menu will be interesting enough to whet the appetite of food lovers, those adventurous enough for a six-hour drive or seven-hour bus ride from Manila,” Danao said.
For those staying a few days, there are nearby accommodation facilities always open to visitors. It may take a while for the restaurant to expand to a bed and breakfast (B&B) format, as it is still working on the completion of a garden gazebo and a function area that can hold as many as 300 people for big events.
Danao said the good camaraderie among his staff, who are all Dupax natives, is key in sustaining the flow of creativity and innovation within the establishment.
He also recalled how the pandemic has been instrumental into making his passion a reality. Just as the lockdown started to ease, he relocated his family from Metro Manila to reside for good in Dupax, which is a far cry from what the life his family was used to.
“Literally, there’s nothing to do in the middle of a farm. And truly, we’ve been missing going to Tagaytay for day trips. It’s the nearest place, out of town, to go when we’re craving for good food with a view. So we’re missing that during the pandemic. And here in the province, life is so relaxed compared to the city,” he said.
He said he was always amazed at how fine restaurants in Tagaytay are always full to the brim and, during weekends, have long queues despite the expensive menu.
His dining experience pushed him to create a niche market in a heritage town to complement the tourism value of the place and share his passion for food with the locals.
Danao knew nothing comes easy, and the birthing pains of bringing an unfamiliar enterprise to a rural set-up, though an expected challenge, was still unbelievably strenuous and grueling, not to mention, capital intensive.
His family owns a fashion accessory business that supplies to Rustan’s Department Store and exports as well. On Sundays, he sees organically-grown vegetables sold on a weekend market in Centris, Quezon City. Branching out to food is totally diverse from creating fashion pieces, and he and his family had really an intense discussion before the plan was put to action.
He said pooling resources to get the business started may seem a tough act. More taxing, however, was the challenge to get the right people for the right role.
Manpower in the municipality is abundant, but looking for people with specific skills was daunting as majority of the candidates were not even aware of what fine dining is.
“But the crew we hired were quick to learn. So we devoted a great deal of time for training. We ourselves are not that enlightened on how to properly train the staff. Without the manuals, it’s more of training while working, and we’re quite good at hitting the right spots. The internet was really big help to us. Even when rustling up a new menu or dish, the internet was our bible,” Danao said.
The Green Oasis gives opportunities to new graduates, building on their competencies and upskilling them as they fulfill their roles in the establishment. Every crew needs to learn how to multi-task to work as a team and foster interdependency. That is how The Green Oasis operates, with great teamwork and by looking out for each other.
Danao admitted it is a challenge to support a crew of 30 employees who are paid on a weekly basis. The restaurant managed to break even as it nears it first anniversary on June 23, 2023.
Recalling a conference on farm tourism he attended in Tagaytay about seven years ago, he said the seminar has influenced his family to dive into farm-to-table business. The seminar, organized by former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor, left a good impression of helpful insights on how farming or agriculture could be a tool to promote tourism.
This is one of the goals of The Green Oasis of Dupax—to put to test the merits of the Farm Tourism Development Act, authored by Senator Cynthia Villar. It is also in line with the program of Nueva Vizcaya Governor Jose Gambito to establish a tourism and agriculture roadmap for the province.
So far, The Green Oasis has not yet encountered insurmountable challenges and has perfectly blended agriculture and tourism into an enterprise that has brought together four important sectors—livelihood, agriculture, tourism and health.
Danao believes that people flock to their side of town to eat good food. Some travel one-and-a-half hours on a tricycle to dine. There was a time when two ladies, who brought with them a baby, called the restaurant for directions and asked if it was accessible by tricycle.
“And they just went here, took a 1 and 1/2 hour trip by tricycle and the transportation fee was not cheap. One way would have cost them P250 to P300. What I’m saying is that the anecdotes showed real appreciation for what we do. And this is beyond money, this was priceless. Actually we had doubts before if the people here were ready for fine dining and surprisingly they could afford,” he said.
“You have to be a believer of farm-to-table concept to be able to pull through. You need to have that kind of commitment. If money is the motivation to pursue this, you will not survive. And we believe that good food, quality food, healthy food will always be in fashion even in the countryside,” he said.
The restaurant is open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11 am to 7:30 pm and weekends from 9 am to 7:30 pm. Aside from the restaurant, diners and visitors are free to frolic around the greenhouse, herbal and medicinal plants garden and the meditation area.
