Kilig is a Tagalog word that describes a feeling of inexplicable joy, like the butterflies you get in your stomach with your first crush, says Melissa Miranda. She chose that name for her second restaurant, a fast-casual follow-up to the much-lauded Musang in Beacon Hill, in the hope that “our food leaves you feeling that way.”
If you’ve indulged in Kilig’s pancit or bulalo, chances are good you have experienced the bliss.
The cheery, vibrantly hued space at the corner of 8th Avenue South and S. Lane Street sits a bit off the beaten track in the CID, but it’s an area coalescing into a tight-knit business community. Miranda is pals with Brian Myers — another Filipino and the owner of Tabletop Village, a Pokémon players’ haven across the street from Kilig — and with Yen Ma, who owns nearby Gan Bei, a Cantonese restaurant and karaoke bar. The Japanese restaurants Itsumono and Fort St. George are also in the vicinity. “These are all places we frequent as patrons,” said Miranda. “There is this really vibrant, beautiful community in the ID of folks supporting each other.”
Born in Seattle to Filipino immigrants, Miranda took a circuitous path to cooking the food of her people. Her dad was the parent who cooked Filipino food for the family. Her mother was more Americanized and sparked Miranda’s love of travel by taking her on a tour of Europe during high school. She lived in Siena, Italy for a time during college, and fell in love with all things Italian.
Miranda hit a career crossroads after earning a sociology degree from the University of Washington. While she was applying for a master’s degree she was also considering culinary school. Encouraged by her mother to follow her passion, she enrolled in a cooking school in Florence. The seasonality inherent in Italian cuisine, along with the Filipino flavors she learned to love as a kid, color her cooking today.
Musang (her father’s nickname) started as a brunch pop-up at Bar del Corso in Beacon Hill, where Miranda lives. A Kickstarter campaign enabled the move in 2020 to a cozy, blue bungalow a few blocks north on Beacon Avenue. People lined up to get in, until lockdown happened two months later. Responding to the COVID-19 crisis, Musang provided free meals to the community through 2021. There was never really any question of shutting down. “In a crisis, who do you turn to?” said Miranda. “It’s community.”
The ups and downs continued. In 2023, the year she opened Kilig, Miranda was named Food & Wine’s Best New Chef award. The next year, she was a James Beard semifinalist. But in that same year, a burst pipe caused a flood at Musang. Repairs closed down the restaurant for six months. They are still recouping.
The flood prevented Miranda from being as involved at Kilig as she wanted to be, but she is there now almost every day, creating connections in the neighborhood. She hopes regular events like Mahjong Mondays, featuring Musangtino’s Bomburgers, and Tanduay nights, showcasing the popular Filipino rum, every third Thursday of the month, will establish Kilig as the community hub it is meant to be. She expects the return of the legendary Bush Garden will breathe even more life into the area. “It is really such a beautiful neighborhood.”
Bruce Miyahara, better known as OG-san, retired from an esteemed career in public health and now helps out in restaurant kitchens just for fun. Providence Cicero is a food writer and a former restaurant critic for the Seattle Times.
We sat down with Miranda to talk more about her life and career. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.
International Examiner: How has being a child of immigrants influenced your career?
Melissa Miranda: Being a child of immigrants, you get to see how scrappy your parents have to be. There’s a lot of sacrifices that are made, and maybe you don’t realize it until you’re older, and you get to see what they had to do in order to give you a better future. I think I can connect that to how I run the business now. A lot of the lessons that I’ve learned over the last six years running Musang have felt like that journey. A lot of learning on my own, in hopes that I can give the next generation a better future; a lot of resilience; a lot of trial and error; a lot of leaning on your community.
IE: How did Italy change your approach to cooking Filipino food?
MM: My dad was the one that mostly cooked Filipino food at home. The idea of seasonality wasn’t really a thing, because he could kind of make the dishes with whatever was in the market. But when I lived in Italy, my best friend is actually Filipina-Italian, there was a lot of learning from her. We would make adobo, but we’d make it with red wine and grapes, or instead of palm hearts, we’d make artichoke hearts in kare-kare. I would wonder if that product, or that vegetable, could work if I applied it this way for Filipino food. So yeah, it definitely influenced me. I recently put together a book proposal of Filipino food in seasons.
IE: What Filipino dishes were you most hesitant to interpret or most excited to introduce people to?
MM: The two that stand out most are dinuguan, a pork blood and offal stew, and bagoong, a fermented shrimp paste. We would call dinuguan “chocolate meat” growing up. It’s essentially all the pig parts stewed together. It has vinegar and pork blood and a little spice. Just from appearance, it can look very intimidating. We do a version of dinuguan in the winter where we just use a pork chop. We brine it, and then we make a silky pork blood vinegar sauce with it.
Bagoong was one of those dishes you could just immediately walk into a house and smell it and know it was Filipino. It’s very funky. Growing up you think it smells so bad but it’s so, so tasty. Being able to make our own version from scratch and then apply it in different dishes, and getting folks excited about it, that’s something.
My mom was more the one that wanted to lean towards the American way, whereas my dad was like, I’m Filipino through and through. For me, it was always important to just stick to what is truly Filipino and then educate folks on what that is, not be afraid of it. I love when non-Filipinos come in and ask for dinuguan.
IE: What’s the one Filipino condiment or ingredient that every home cook should have in their pantry, regardless of heritage?
MM: Vinegar, because everything needs acid 100% across the board. Filipino cane vinegar is less acidic and can be a little sweet but to be able to play with it is so cool. It will completely change the outlook of the dish.
IE: What’s being done about safety in the CID?
MM: With FIFA coming up, they’re asking all the businesses to take down the boards. Sadly, they’re up for a reason, to prevent break-ins. Safety in the area is an uphill battle.
We’ve been in talks with the mayor and the deputy mayor. We usually meet with them once a month. We’ve done walkthroughs to help improve lighting. We’re thinking about how we can change parking rules to make it less of an issue. We are all working on [ways to] brighten up the area. There’s muralists coming in to help make it look nicer. They’re going to put planters out there. Hopefully we can get more lights out there.
Tuyen Than [Executive Director of CIDBIA, the Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Area] is very helpful and incredible. Plus having younger representation to voice what’s happening and getting more involved is helpful.
IE: Besides your own spots, what’s the first place you take out-of-town guests for dinner?
MM: Maneki. That’s probably my absolute favorite place. It’s just such a true Seattle experience. Or I’d take them to Oriental Mart to visit Tita Lila at Pike Place Market. That’s my comfort place.
IE: What is the soundtrack of your kitchens?
MM: It ranges depending on who’s in charge of the speaker. It’s mostly ’90s and 2000s R&B and hip hop but it can range all the way to Filipino love songs, which is really sweet.
