Every recipe chosen to populate the menu at Santa Maria’s newest Filipino restaurant has been taste-tested and perfected by generations.
“We always stick with the authenticity of the food. So whatever the usual household is cooking is what we serve,” Raul Capuno said. “All of these recipes have been tested for years and years.”
Capuno’s Lutong Bahay opened in December 2023 with the help of Capuno’s wife, daughters, and son-in-law. The family business is rapidly approaching its one-year anniversary, recently opened for breakfast, and is currently expanding its small storefront into the space next door.
His four daughters grew up eating the food that’s now being served out of their Santa Maria restaurant—a combination platter of cuisines highlighting the areas of the Philippines where their parents grew up. Raul’s specialties are from Candelaria, Quezon Province, and his wife, Jonah, is from Bacolod, Negros Occidental.
“Their love language is cooking,” their daughter Marielle Capuno said, adding that they were always in the kitchen.
“We’re the critics, the food critics,” Marielle added with a laugh.
“Over the years, we finessed the recipes,” said Raul, who grew up helping his mom cook. “My mom was always in the kitchen, too.”
Marielle (the second oldest daughter) helps out with the restaurant’s front of house, overall operations, and marketing material, while her sister Rona Peña (who’s the oldest) spearheads the pastry and dessert-making. Peña attended culinary school in the Philippines and worked at Jeannine’s bakery in Santa Barbara for eight years.
Most of the breakfast options on offer as of the beginning of September are served Silog style—garlic fried rice with eggs and a choice of meat—and Capuno’s began offering pandesal—a sweet, soft bread that’s a breakfast staple in every home in the Philippines—as part of its pastry selection.
The first Sunday Capuno’s offered the fluffy, buttery pandesal, they sold out by 11 a.m.
“People buy dozens and dozens and take them,” Peña said. “We’re still trying to assess the demand. … We were not expecting it.”
As part of the breakfast pastries offered at the counter, Peña whips up pandesal, ube (purple yam) pandesal, ensaymada (a brioche rolled in butter and sugar and topped with butter, sugar, and cheese), and a sweet milky roll stuffed with cheese and topped with milk powder.
Now open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and serving Santa Barbara Roasting Company coffee, Capuno’s offers breakfast all day, except for Mondays and Tuesdays when the restaurant is closed.
On Sundays, the whole family is there, including mom Jonah who still works as an RN in a Santa Barbara dialysis clinic.
“It’s a very comforting and easy feeling to be here together as a family,” said Peña, whose husband also helps out in the kitchen.
Raul was also in the health care field and worked as a medical tech in a lab testing blood before putting all his efforts into the restaurant. He met Jonah while they were both working their first jobs at a hospital in Raul’s hometown.
They came to the U.S. in 1992, starting on the East Coast in New Jersery, New York, and Connecticut before heading to Thousand Oaks, Santa Barbara, and now Santa Maria. In the process, they had four daughters—one who’s still in high school and one in college—who grew up in a tight-knit family unit that continues to spend time in the kitchen together doing what they’re passionate about.
“We grew up seeing everything they did for us … coming from humbler beginnings and growing up so close to that,” Marielle said of her decision to work in her parents’ restaurant. “We saw that it was something that they really wanted to do for themselves. … And we really wanted to support it.”
Raul said he and Jonah have always wanted a restaurant and to share their culture and food with the community. And they wanted it to be homestyle cooking—hence the name Capuno’s Lutong Bahay. Lutong bahay, he said, means homestyle cooking.
“We wanted to share the taste of our cooking with the community and for them to experience the authenticity of Filipino cuisine,” Raul said.
They each have a favorite. Marielle loves the pinoy spaghetti, a Filipino adaptation of Italian spaghetti with a sweet tomato sauce that includes brown sugar, banana ketchup, and Nathan’s hot dogs. For Peña, it’s anything chicken, like the chicken skewers grilled with the family’s homemade barbecue sauce or the chicken adobo braised in soy sauce, a vinegar mixture, and a lot of garlic.
Raul’s favorite is “everything I cook,” he said with a laugh before adding that what he loves is also a customer favorite: the pork adobo.
All combos are served with rice, pancit (noodles and vegetables in a sweet, spicy sauce), and Jonah’s lumpia (basically a Filipino egg roll)—which come with beef or pork. And you won’t be disappointed. The food is tasty.
Customers come from near and far for the homecooked food served at Capuno’s, and often, Raul said, diners will tell him how much the dishes remind them of home. Sometimes, though, they don’t have enough tables for their customers. That’s one of the reasons why the restaurant is expanding into the space next door.
“We started with only two tables and that bench,” he said pointing to a bench and table against one of the space’s windows. “Sometimes people leave because there’s nowhere to sit.”
Hoping to accommodate everyone who’s ready for some lutong bahay, Raul said the addition should be done by the end of September. With teamwork and passion for comforting cuisine, Jonah and Raul’s tight-knit family plans to continue serving up good food that comes from the heart.
Editor Camillia Lanham wants more chicken adobo, beef lumpia, and pancit. Send new restaurant tips to [email protected].
