Kayu restaurant review: A boundless vision of Filipino cooking takes shape

Each buoyant, oil-tanned doughnut at Kayu is piped full of black truffle cream, draped in prosciutto and capped with curls of smoked cheddar. Salty and sweet, peaty and intense, this is chef Paolo Dungca’s telling of an ensaymada, traditionally a small loaf of brioche baked until golden and topped with butter, sugar, and grated cheddar or mildly nutty queso de bola. Here, the baked pastry is replaced by a bombolone, a fried and filled doughnut nodding to executive chef Julie Cortes’s time spent cooking Italian food in Manila.