Cebu Sugba & Sinuglaw Seafood Cooking Class

Cebu's food identity is defined by fire and acid. Sugba means grilled, and Cebuanos grill seafood over coconut-shell charcoal until the skin crisps and the flesh is just cooked through. Sinuglaw is the signature mashup: sinugba (grilled pork) meets kinilaw (raw fish cured in vinegar) in one bowl, a dish that encapsulates the Cebuana cook's instinct to combine textures and preservation methods in unexpected ways.

This 3-hour class teaches both. You start at a local market choosing the freshest lapu-lapu (grouper), tanigue (Spanish mackerel) and pork belly. Back in the teaching kitchen you learn charcoal fire management, the acid-to-heat ratio that makes kinilaw sing, and the timing that keeps sugba moist. You cook, you plate, you eat — with cold San Miguel to wash it down.

The instructor is a Cebuana home cook who learned these recipes from her mother and grandmother: no chef-school flourishes, just accurate technique and the kind of contextual food knowledge that makes a dish reproducible at home. You leave with written recipes and, more importantly, the muscle memory to cook them properly.