If you’re in love, start an ice cream brand together. When chef Gabriel Melocoton and Chaela Ruth Mirano started dating three years ago, neither planned on going into business with each other. After countless conversations about nothing and everything, however, the Bacolod-based couple found themselves launching abao, an ice cream brand that’s as much inspired by their relationship as it is by the region they live in.
Abao is a specialty ice cream brand that serves unique flavors like Black Rice Horchata, Taho, and Honey Pecorino, using locally produced ingredients whenever possible. Foodies in Bacolod may have already encountered their offerings at pop-ups, cafes, and private dining events, but Gab and Chaela have decided to take their project to the next level by formally launching abao as a brand.
“This is a brand that was honestly built on so much respect for each other, and respecting each other’s ideas,” Chaela shared. “We both listen to each other and this is really our baby.”
Chaela is the de facto operations manager behind abao, handling branding and marketing while Gab serves as, in her words, the “creative force” behind their ice cream. It’s a setup that meshes together their respective strengths. While Chaela is an accomplished magazine editor and freelance host, Gab is an accomplished chef who’s had stops in San Francisco and Australia before bringing his talents back to Bacolod.
The two met when Chaela came across his pastries at a pop-up event and wanted to order more. Gab, however, kept telling her he didn’t have time to deliver on her orders, despite her attempts to make something work.
“I was like, ‘Ooh, how do I get him to be nice to me?’,” Chaela said, laughing. “And so I came up with the idea of asking him for an interview.”
She offered to do a profile on Gab for the magazine she was working at, and a door opened to something more. What started out as calls and messages regarding the interview became an excuse to talk more and hang out in person.
It helped a lot that Chaela was passionate about food, shared Gab.
“I love people who eat and just enjoy traveling and experiencing new things,” he said. “When Chaela comes over, she just sits down, and I try to share as many things with her as I can. Things that I’m working on, things that she likes.”
“I think I found the perfect partner,” he added.
It was through Gab that Chaela found herself introduced to the world of tasting menus and private dinners, which in turn led to them starting a private dining business together. It was through this experience that they had the bright idea to start abao.
“I was like, ‘Okay, what else can we do?’,” she recounted. “So we started supplying ice cream to this one café, to this deli meat shop, and they really loved it.”
The success with the ice cream led the couple to upgrade their equipment – Gab was still using home use appliances at the time – and explore what they could bring to the table that was completely unique from what other ice cream brands were offering. The answer, it turned out, was themselves.
“Some of our fun flavors really came from very casual conversations that we have in cars. Gab is driving, and then we’ll talk about something,” Chaela shares. Their Black Rice Horchata ice cream, for instance, came about when Chaela went on a company outing in Boracay and told Gab about an ube horchata she’d tried.
“Along the way, Gab was like, “Oh my god, what if we turn it into black rice horchata? And what if we turn it into ice cream?”
When the two went to Japan together, they made it a point to try random ice creams in their area, and one that stood out was a soy-flavored one. When they both agreed that it reminded them of taho, Gab got excited.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god! We could do this!’,” he said.
“That’s why it’s called ‘abao,’ because it’s those moments that define what we do,” he added. “It’s really based off of our own conversations, our own ideas, and what we’re inspired by.”
One major source of inspiration for the couple is their goal of championing Bacolod-produced ingredients through Abao’s ice cream. Gab makes it a point to use locally sourced ingredients whenever possible because he believes that Bacolod’s food culture is best found in the work of Negrense artisans and farmers. It’s an advocacy that Chaela shares, and a huge reason why they both believe in their ice cream.
“We want Negrenses to feel so proud, because when we carry our brand, it’s not just us. It’s everyone we get our ingredients from,” Chaela said.
“There are so many local artisans who do things right here, do things respectfully, do things with a lot of love and care. They just don’t get that exposure,” Gab explained. “They just don’t get that recognition that brands have just because they’re small-time producers; just because they’re farmers. So we want to bring them forward also with what we do.”
Gab highlights this through the relative simplicity of abao’s offerings. Instead of overloading the ice cream with an assortment of toppings and mix-ins, he opts to let each ingredient shine on its own merit. This is true for simpler flavors like Taho, as well as for more complex fare like Bugtaw and Ginger with Mango-Calamansi Curd.
Through abao ice cream, Gab and Chaela get to share their story, their conversations, their beliefs, and their creativity in a medium everyone can relate with: ice cream.
“Everybody’s familiar with it. Everybody’s had it,” Chaela said.
“If you’re happy, you eat ice cream. If you’re sad, you eat ice cream. If you’re celebrating something, you eat ice cream,” added Gab.
In their words, ice cream is always a good idea. And for this Bacolod-based couple specifically, abao is one of their best ideas yet.
Abao ice cream is a new artisanal ice cream brand co-founded by Chef Gabriel Melocoton and Chaela Ruth Mirano. Abao and its unique flavors can currently be found at pop-up events, through weekly orders, or by booking their ice cream cart for private events.