Longtime Fayetteville realtor Esperanza “Nanette” Thomas said she’s known for her Filipino home cooking among family, friends and clients, and soon the city will be able to get a taste of the islands at her forthcoming restaurant.
Kusinera Filipino Cuisine is slated to open Sept. 14 at 3047 Legion Road, formerly seafood restaurant Crab Du Jour, in a shopping plaza at Black and Decker and Legion roads.
Thomas, 54, named the 72-seat eatery Kusinera, the Tagalog word for a woman chef, because she leads the kitchen.
“I am really the one cooking,” she said Tuesday.
Thomas said the restaurant will serve family recipes that she ate growing up in Luzon.
“It’s very flavorful food, so you have to eat it with rice,” she explained. “In my country, we say ‘rice is life.’”
She said her signature dishes are lumpia, fried spring rolls filled with house-ground pork, celery, carrots and green onions; and pancit, a rice noodle dish with sauce, cabbage, carrots and green beans.
Thomas says owning a restaurant has always been her dream
As the youngest of five siblings, Thomas said she grew up poor and never received an education beyond high school.
She's made a life for herself in Fayetteville, however, over the last two decades. She’s been in real estate since 2006, she said, and her husband joined her in the profession in 2008 after retiring from the Air Force.
Together, the couple own Thomas Real Estate Services in Hope Mills, where they manage a team of realtors and offer rental property management services.
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Thomas said her real estate career made two life goals possible. First, she to built houses for her family back in the Philippines. Now she can pursue her true passion, opening a restaurant.
“A lot of people can’t do that,” she said of finding success despite humble beginnings. “And I did it.”
Kusinera's soft opening transported guests to the Philippines
At the restaurant’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Thomas served a buffet of kaldereta, a red sauce beef stew; ginataang hipon, or shrimp cooked in coconut milk; lechon, a whole roasted pig; achara, a pickled papaya salad; pancit; rice; cake; and pastries.
Upbeat music played over the speakers in the eatery, which has warm yellow walls lined with pictures of Filipino landmarks, potted banana trees and an open kitchen.
“It feels like we’re back in the Philippines,” one guest remarked.
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The soft opening event also marked Thomas’s 54th birthday.
“Opening the restaurant is my birthday gift to myself,” she said.
The restaurant doesn't open for regular service until later this month, but a lively crowd of about 50 friends and family from as far as Texas packed the restaurant for the occasion, eating elbow-to-elbow, and eventually singing to the woman of the hour.
“I won’t make any wishes,” Thomas said as she blew out her birthday candles. “My wish already came true.”
The details
Address: 3047 Legion Road
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, starting Sept. 14
Contact: 910-578-8146
On the web : Search “Kusinera Filipino Cuisine” on Facebook
Food, dining and culture reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com. Want weekly food news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter .
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: 'It feels like the Philippines': Fayetteville restaurant to serve Filipino home cooking
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