MANILA, Philippines — Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou has gone beyond kitchen duties as he finds himself leading a multi-platform community covering various topics in his quest to “democratize the space.”
The chef has been steadily creating cooking videos on YouTube via his Simpol channel, empowering home cooks, kitchen novice and overseas Filipino workers who miss cooking their beloved Sinigang and other Filipino food abroad to take up the ladle and fire up the stove.
Apart from food content creation, he has also been publishing his Simpol cookbooks for those who still want to have physical copies of recipes, and he is not stopping because another Simpol cookbook is out for publishing.
Last January, Chef Tatung launched what seemed to be his branding, Simpol.ph.
“Dati, it was all about me. Anong gagawin ko sa na-set-up ko if it is all about me?” asked the chef.
He sat with reporters one late night in April in one of his restaurants, Azadore, which turns two this year.
His namesake website is an omnichannel that looks like its own lifestyle portal. It has its own set of columnists that covers various topics beyond the expected Philippine culinary landscape.
“We want to tap the creative middle class; others are very elite, others are very urban…
“We're not driven by virality. We're not driven by gimmicks. We’re really driven by real stories that resonate. It doesn't have the kind of cycle na viral, million views agad. Sa amin, followers namin solid talaga and when we promote something, there’s an impact to the market. There's an impact to to business,” Chef Tatung said.
At Simpol, as the chef said, it lends a space for different stories, such as the profiles of interesting individuals, and even beauty pageant and entertainment stories. In short, very much like a standard online lifestyle portal minus the breaking stories.
“It’s because we want to to have shared voices. It's like I have the mechanism, I have the facility.
"I'll share it with you if you have something important to share because a lot of the columnists are talking about things not in the mainstream. They talk about Education, Law. These are stories that need to be heard,” the chef stressed.
From own experience
This is also his reasoning for the smaller businesses who want the public to know their stories. Chef Tatung said this was personal because he himself had to find his own space in the digital world.
“Even at my status, hindi ako pinapansin kasi hindi elite. So you're disenfranchised. How do you promote? How do you reach? How do you share your story? ‘Yan ‘yung gusto naming mangyari, democratize the space,” Chef Tatung said.
He might be working on giving his platform to entities and individuals who have interesting stories to tell, but Chef Tatung stressed that it is not a free-for-all.
In a time when anyone can be an influencer with just a handheld device or smartphone, the chef draws the line when it comes to the content put out on his site.
“Integrity is still very important. We wanted to create an organization that has the dynamic and flexibility of a vlog or or of an influencer yet have the professionalism of the mainstream [media].
“So para kaming hybrid because when you go to our office, it's very corporate. Our system is very corporate, but we're very agile in the sense that we can react faster. We can distribute the demand. Feeling namin it's really a whole integrated media community,” he said.
Chef Tatung is working on launching an e-magazine and Simpol TV.