Authentic Filipino Food Comes to Nashville for One-Night SALO Project Pop-Up

We’re No. 39! No, it isn’t yet another ranking in which Tennessee underperforms the majority of the country on some random metric. We’re No. 39 on the

tour. Self-taught chef Yana Gilbuena is taking a 50-week, 50-state expedition across the country. She’s cooking Filipino food at one pop-up dinner on a Sunday night in each state in the U.S. (The name SALO is derived from salu-salo, the word for gathering in Tagalog, a language spoken by a majority of Filipinos.)

This week Nashville is the lucky pick as Gilbuena’s Volunteer State stop. She’ll cook a five-course regional Filipino meal that goes way beyond just adobo and lumpia, and she'll serve it family style to diners in a favorite East Nashville/Inglewood business. As is common with pop-ups, the exact location is revealed to the diner once he or she purchases a ticket. In other cities she’s served on rooftops, in art galleries and at almost every other imaginable venue.

Gilbuena didn't train professionally trained as a chef but found herself frustrated by not finding Filipino food available in restaurants. "It was just not properly represented,” she says. She was mulling a smaller version of the SALO Project when she was laid off from her interior design job. That sounded like opportunity knocking, and she hit the road for the 50-week tour. She picks most of her locations based on where she knows people with whom she can couch surf, but chose Nashville because of its reputation for food and fun.

After landing in each city (by bus or train) midweek, she starts making connections with local farmers and purveyors. She purposely offers the dinners on Sunday nights so they don’t compete with busy weekend nights at local businesses.

“People are not just coming to a pop-up, but they are also contributing to a charity,” Gilbuena adds. Some of the proceeds from the dinners benefit ARK: Advancement for Rural Kids, an organization working to build a school in a region of the Philippines that was struck by Typhoon Haiyan last year.

Tickets are $50, and space is limited. The Louisville meal sold out, so buy your ticket online now. The cap is 20 diners, but given the venue, Gilbuena says they may be able to add seats if it sells out (the largest group she has ever accommodated is 80). Alcohol is BYOB and, don't forget to wash your hands first. These dinners are served Kamayan-style, in the Filipino to eat with banana leaves. There are no utensils.