When she first moved to Manila to study, Marie Dumol had to “retrain” her stomach “to the Manila diet.” Growing up by the beaches in Capiz province, Dumol associates fresh seafood and the day’s catch with childhood comfort the way others might associate childhood’s delights with fried chicken, chocolate, or pork rinds.
It was during a vacation in Bali, Indonesia where Dumol saw the potential of local ingredients and dishes in fine dining tasting menus at an affordable price point.
Back in Manila and with a team of investors, she eventually opened Leo Sea House, named after the fiery, daring zodiac sign, in a quiet residential neighborhood next to a public school in Marikina.
Seating 10 people at a time, four in the open kitchen and bar, and six upstairs in tables-for-two, Leo Sea House opens for dinner, with seating hours from 6-8PM and 8:30-10:30PM, by reservation. Weekends often see a full house.
The area’s rent and proximity to the public market kept costs low, allowing their 8-course tasting menus to hover at around PhP 2500.00 since first opening in 2023. Nonetheless, the House sources majority of its ingredients, especially its fish, from Capiz – touted as the Philippines’ seafood capital – all shipped weekly.
At its early days, Dumol ran Leo Sea House largely by herself: Purchasing, front-of-house, food and beverage concepts, and research and development. This proved formative, and allowed her to effectively guide the team as it eventually expanded.
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Hands-on learning
As the team grew, Leo Sea House began inviting guest chefs for its menus that changed every six months. Ever since it opened, the first half of the year was devoted to Filipino menus while the latter half allowed the restaurant to interpret imported, often Western and Japanese, dishes.
Dumol’s since worked with chefs of varying specializations: Raw food, Filipino, vegan, Italian, you name it.
This proved to be a case of “learning as you go” for Dumol, who in the process of regular collaborations with different chefs, learned new ways of tasting – and serving – the seafood and ingredients she grew up loving.
She shares that at the day’s end, “the secret is in the handling” from net to market to table. And it’s a craft as much as it’s a career as Dumol is confident in her skills in deboning fish, shucking shellfish, cutting fillets, and setting dishes.
At this point, I can’t help but recall the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, featuring one of Japan’s master sushi chefs and his whole-of-life approach to excellence, from waking up at dawn to select the best catch, to making sure it gets home safe, then serve it in a limited-seating restaurant.
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Familiar ingredients sing new songs
Before opening the House, Dumol sold seafood wholesale, and it was those very connections and familiarity with the ingredients that tided her over to this new chapter in her career, in her craft, in her passion to share the best expressions possible in Capiz seafood.
Just as an egg will taste different when turned into drop soup, sauteed as an omelette, or boiled in 7 versus 10 minutes, so it is with ingredients familiar to many Filipinos: Think labong pureed to unleash a refreshingly creamy sauce, tuba and tablea chocolate combined as souring agent for a sous vide matambakal paksiw, or oysters served on bruschetta.
And then there are the innovations: Fish chorizo smoked on santol wood, tul-tul or traditional driftwood salt dancing with olive salt and caviar dusted on coconut bibingka, sometimes eaten one after the other, sometimes eaten as one big bite.
The cocktails and wine list also changes with the menu: Aperol now, plantation rum later, old world wine here, Bugnay wine there, the best from East and West.
Dumol and her team also manage a casual dining seafood restaurant, Abet, in Marikina Heights, which opened in mid-2025. The cuisine here also spotlights Western Visayas ingredients and methods, but is more straightforward. Leo Sea House in turn also serves as a playground for the team to test their imagination.
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“It starts getting really busy on Fridays,” Neil Leyretana, the head chef, tells me, “good thing you went on a Wednesday. Otherwise, there isn’t time to chat between each course.”
There was a palpable pride-of-place in him and the team as they narrated each dish prior to serving, delving into ingredients and processes not listed in the printed menus, eagerly answering questions from guests.
Like Dumol, they also largely hail from Western Visayas. It’s as if the menus serve to tease, to invite diners to ask questions after being pleasantly surprised with the realm of possibility inherent in the Philippines’ best, brought to life in Leo Sea House.
Reserve your seat and contact @LeoSeaHouse on Facebook and Instagram.
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