Regina Troy Barrios

Trellis and Erwan Heussaff x Phil Rosenthal

Article (news)

I hadn’t been to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/trellis1980/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trellis</a> on Kalayaan Street, Quezon City, in over 20 years. But when <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/metro-style/food/2025/6/19/erwan-heussaff-unpacks-manila-in-somebody-feed-phil-season-8-1142" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Somebody Feed Phil</a> dropped its Manila episode, featuring<a href="https://www.instagram.com/phil.rosenthal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Phil Rosenthal</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DLC4ZqNISIu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Erwan Heussaff</a> sharing a table and a sizzling plate of sisig—the internet exploded. Trellis posted that their sisig had sold out, for the first time in 45 years.And suddenly, that familiar hiss was everywhere again— TikTok, food blogs, Facebook comments from titos in Canada. I understood the reaction. It wasn’t just hunger, it was memory. For many of us who came of age in the &#x27;90s or early 2000s, Trellis wasn’t just a restaurant, it was a rite of passage.This was where students from UP, Ateneo, and Miriam College went to feel slightly grown up: to drink their first legal beer, to celebrate thesis defense victories, to fall in love (or out of it) over grilled squid and crispy pata. Trellis was, and in some ways still is, where barkada nights blurred into barkada decades.So when the show aired and the sisig sold out, I didn’t just get nostalgic. I got curious. What’s the sisig at Trellis like now?<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1750811319092a.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Erwan Heussaff and Phil Rosenthal helped give sisig it&#x27;s viral moment | Photo: Erwan Heussaff on Instagram</div><h2>The Sisig That Still Sizzles</h2>By the time the sisig hits the table at Trellis, you’ve already heard it coming. The skillet sputters and snaps, gleaming in its own rendered ambition. Everyone at the table flinches. The server, unfazed, sets it down gently.The smell? Burnt ends, vinegar, a trace of liver, and something harder to name. Maybe nostalgia, maybe just pork fat. It&#x27;s hard to tell.This is not the eggy, mayo-drenched mess you meet at bars and food courts, dressed up as “Filipino tapas.” Trellis’s version of sisig is older than the trend. Older than the hashtags. This is sisig the way it was before it showed up on every gastropub menu.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17508115834931.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>This is the classic sisig that came before the craze | Photo: Trellis on Instagram</div>Since opening in 1980, Trellis has served sisig the way God and Angeles City intended it: just pig jowl, ear, cheek, and liver. No eggs. No mayonnaise. No shortcuts. Just acid, heat, and a mastery of balance. The vinegar bites, the chili stings, and after a few bites, you realize—this isn’t greasy bar chow. It’s precision on a sizzling plate.The meat crackles at the edges but stays soft inside. The texture shifts between tender and crisp, never settling, exactly as it should. You chew, then chew again, meeting just enough resistance to make you slow down and appreciate it.At some point between bites—fork paused midair—I thought of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tayagclaude/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Claude Tayag</a>. Manong. The Kapampangan chef (among the many hats he wears) who first taught me that real sisig isn’t just crispy or sour or spicy; it’s disciplined. It’s deliberate. Claude, too, appeared in that Somebody Feed Phil episode, anchoring the scene with his quiet pride and deep knowledge of our cuisine. So my own visit to Trellis was a kind of silent ode to him.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17508118100092.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>A feast of Trellis icons served to Phil Rosenthal | Photo: Trellis on Facebook</div>What surprises me isn’t just the quality—though it’s excellent—but the discipline. Where others have sweetened, creamed, or novelty-fied the dish, Trellis stays stoic. It doesn’t flirt with reinvention. It doesn’t need to.The rest of the menu reads like a UP Diliman block reunion: inihaw na liempo, sinigang na hipon, crispy pata, grilled squid. All solid. Some, even great. But the sisig is the center of the menu, and everything else just orbits it.The restaurant has barely changed in decades. The trellis still stands (of course), ferns fill the corners, and a koi pond greets you at the entrance. Ceiling fans stir the Quezon City heat with a kind of nostalgia. At lunch, it’s half office crowd, half family. At night, it’s barkada and beer. Either way, you’ll wait. No one minds.Trellis hasn’t changed much—and that’s the point. Its staying power lies in its refusal to chase clout. What looks like simplicity is really conviction.<div> </div><h2>The Verdict </h2>The sisig is excellent because it doesn’t try to impress. There are no tricks or shortcuts, just discipline and balance in every bite. If you&#x27;re here for theatrics, gimmicks, or anything “elevated,” this isn&#x27;t your place. But if you want to know what real sisig tasted like before the spotlight—come hungry. Come fast.Because while everyone else is still arguing over whether sisig should be crispy, creamy, or cute, Trellis has been too busy making it the way it&#x27;s meant to be.

After Trellis's sisig went viral thanks to Somebody Feed Phil and sold out for the first time in 45 years, we returned to see if this cult classic still delivers on the sizzle.

After Trellis's sisig went viral thanks to Somebody Feed Phil and sold out for the first time in 45 years, we returned to see if this cult classic still delivers on the sizzle.

We Tried The Trellis Sisig That Went Viral, Here’s What We Think

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We Tried The Trellis Sisig That Went Viral, Here’s What We Think

Troy Barrios

Published Jun 25, 2025 08:50 AM PHT

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Updated Jul 04, 2025 11:01 AM PHT

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phil rosenthal

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