Labour of love: Kilig
(Picture: Adrian Lourie)Kinilaw is a dish most efficiently described as Filipino ceviche; fat chunks of fish, cured to pale, plump softness, and tumbled in a brine that’s more about vinegared, puckering sourness than pronounced heat. It is, in my experience, a gateway to this archipelagic nation’s massively underrated cuisine. But late on during lunch at Kilig in Deptford, as we finished the last of our mains, we realised the version we had ordered at the start of the meal was very much missing in action.
“Oh yes, yes, sorry,” said one flustered member of the swamped, three-person staff, when we gently asked where it was. “We’ll do that right away.” That we told him not to bother (never usually a good sign) felt more like a necessary act of kindness than any sort of value judgement on most of what we’d just eaten. Even so, it is a moment that still strikes me as more than a little instructive in relation to this new Colombian-Filipino fusion spot. Kilig is occasionally inspired and enormously likeable but also prone, here and there, to a kind of erratic overreach. That it gets its name from the Tagalog word for a giddying surge of romantic excitement seems apt. Many of its pleasures really did burn with the fleeting intensity of a crush.
Still, there honestly was much more good than bad. Founded by hospitality veterans Ivan Ruiz and Anjelica Serra (whose respective Colombian and Filipino heritage inspires the concept), it occupies a sleekly reconfigured railway arch near Deptford station. It’s a narrow, dim-lit space, bedecked with hanging plants, straw-backed stools and pale orange banquette seating; the soundtrack is thumping reggaeton and the occasional, bone-juddering rumble of trains passing overhead.
I’d brought Rex de Guzman along with me — a genial, talented Filipino heritage chef friend that the eagle-eyed may remember was a contestant in Channel 4’s Cookbook Challenge. And our early picks from the menu suggested that Kilig’s aesthetic confidence might be very much justified. Arepa with pork adobo was basically impossible to dislike: the fried Colombian maize patty and a brooding, soft heap of rich Filipino stew making a compellingly messy two-bite case for the innate harmoniousness of these food cultures.
Chicken skin skewers might have been even better. They were little wooden lances of avian crackling, brushed in a sticky soy glaze, and channelling something of griddled squid’s springy, blistered succulence. “In the Philippines we’d probably give this more of a vinegary marinade,” said Rex. “But I’m into it.” There were appealing, thoughtfully conceived drinks as well, including a zingy gin spritz that was spiked with calamansi (the sour-edged citrus fruit) and sold to me by the enjoyably blissed-out barman as “very dank”. It’s hard to adequately put into words how much I approve of this as a new entry into the mixologist’s phrasebook.
Then came the blips. Crisped, breaded lengths of aubergine were set in a claggy, underpowered chickpea puree; empanadas, one filled with ox cheek and another with sweetcorn-flecked mozzarella, felt like Findus crispy pancakes without the associative grubby appeal; Colombian cola rice — literally rice simmered in Coke — had a weird allure but needed something more intensely spiced or salty than the creditable chicken thigh and mango salad we’d gone for. Execution was no doubt hampered by the bare-bones staffing. More broadly, however, some of the jarring collisions felt like an inevitable byproduct of Kilig’s culture-splicing conceit. Such buccaneering innovation — notably, a weekend brunch menu features ube, pandan and vanilla pancakes plus Colombian eggs with smoked salmon — is bound to occasionally feel like a mismatched work-in-progress.
Thankfully, we finished with an expertly rendered sure-thing. It was hot, fresh-fried churros, sharply ridged, showered with cinnamon sugar, served with an intense, dark chocolate dipping sauce and gobbled to the audible rattle of another passing train.
Yes, Kilig had some bumps along the tracks. But it is a soulful, spirited and commendably affordable labour of love, going somewhere worthwhile, interesting and wholly original.
