POBRE, the First Full-Service Filipino Restaurant in Finland

POBRE (meaning ‘poor’ in English), is one of the Filipino restaurant and was named one of the best new restaurants in Helsinki last 2018. It is located in Kamppi Shopping center, 5th floor, Urho Kekkosen katu 1, FI-00100 Helsinki.

When you come across the country’s name Finland, you would think the brand name NOKIA which is one of the bestselling mobile phones in late 90’s to early 20’s. Finland is one of the greenest, happiest and safest countries in the world that is why there are about 4,000 Filipinos living and staying in Finland such as Cooks, Caregivers, Nurses, Auditors/Accountants, etc.

The concept of Pobre Restaurant started about 5 years ago when a group of 6 young Filipino Chefs namely, Rob Desalisa, Michael Fernandez, Ralph Medina, John Paul Jesus Tello, Justine Caoibes, and Xian Punzalan joined the Restaurant Day back in 2014, a quarterly event for amateurs wherein you can sell your home cooked meals or goods anywhere — at public parks, yard, street corner or even at your home. It’s a day on which anyone can open a pop-up restaurant allowing their imaginations to run wild. All of them have different restaurant jobs back then and with the uniqueness of their food and good feedback from customers, they have decided to do a restaurant pop-up in mid-2017 and finally opened up their own brick-and-mortar in January 2018.

They have already celebrated their first year anniversary and the most recent addition to their menu is when they introduced their own beer, the Calamansi Pale Ale which has received a lot of great reviews.

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“Pobre is a cheeky nod to our humble roots and a tribute to our fellow countrymen who are still struggling to achieve their dreams.

We like to describe our food as New Filipino Cuisine, leaning more towards contemporary rather than fusion. Fusion cuisine has been taking a bad reputation; it can be confusing and gimmicky sometimes. We at Pobre try to re-imagine Filipino dishes without making it too pretentious” said Chef Rob Desalisa.

“It is very humbling to get such positive feedback and a warm welcome to the Finnish food scene. Most Finns, have no clue what Filipino cuisine is and that makes it exciting for us to share our culture, through food and service, with them. The response from the Filipino community was a mix. Some were very happy that

there was a representation; some were a bit apprehensive with what we’re trying to do”. Chef Desalisa said.

POBRE already gained their popularity amongst Finns. I was able to chat and talked to some of the Chefs and I am proud to say that we were able to help them achieve their dreams by deploying them to Finland. Our John Clements Consultants Inc — EDI Staffbuilders CEOs & partners in Finland were able to visit their Restaurant last May 22. It was such an overwhelming experience for our JCCI-EDI family because the foods were excellent, fresh and served with impressive way.

We hope that POBRE will continue to succeed and continue to inspire other future Filipino Chefs who wants to build their future in Finland.

Source: https://www.pobre.fi/ https://news.abs-cbn.com/life/03/12/19/finns-love-this-filipino-restaurant-in-helsinki

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