Tony Boy Escalante was just one year away from becoming a dentist when he made a bold decision: walk away from the path his parents had chosen for him—and find his own.
He wasn’t struggling academically. In fact, he was doing well. But deep down, he knew he didn’t belong there.
“I was a medical student when I quit my studies,” Escalante recalls. “My father told me to take up medicine. You know us—being Catholic and obedient to our parents—we felt guilty, so we tended to follow their wishes.”
To compromise, he took up dentistry instead, thinking it would be a shorter, more manageable path. “I was in my fifth year, with one more year to go, and I just dropped it and said, ‘This is not for me.’ I didn’t fail. I passed. I just knew what I wanted, so I stopped.”
With no clear plan ahead, Escalante accepted a job at Philippine Airlines. While it wasn’t his dream, it opened his eyes to something much bigger.
“When the first job opportunity came up with PAL, I grabbed it. But I knew it wasn’t for me in the long run. I had a passion for cooking, and I told myself I’d take up culinary studies.”
Working for the airline gave him his first real exposure to world-class food and hospitality. “PAL opened my eyes. We flew to many places in Europe. I learned about service, good eating, and good food. Traveling became a part of me—it molded me.”
Cooking wasn’t new to him—it ran in the family. “Our family loves to eat. In our family, the men are the cooks. My dad was a good cook. My mom didn’t cook, but she knew how to give instructions. Food brought us together.”
When a pilots’ strike forced PAL to shut down in 1998, Escalante was already preparing for his next chapter. He had enrolled in a culinary school in Australia and was finally pursuing the passion he’d been putting off for years.
Even before his formal training, he had already envisioned opening a restaurant. “I noticed in Manila, if you wanted fine dining, you had to go to a hotel. There were no standalone fine dining restaurants—except for Billy King.”
That idea gained clarity after he visited a hidden gem in Tagaytay: Sonya’s Garden, a charming, rustic restaurant owned by Sonya Garcia, a former corporate executive who had turned her family’s property into a countryside retreat known for its fresh salads and homemade breads.
“When I met Sonya, who had a small restaurant then in Tagaytay, I was inspired,” he says. “If she could get people from Manila to dine in her garden restaurant, then I told myself I could do it too. She’s Ilongga, like me. I told her, ‘I want a lifestyle like yours.’”
That moment lit a spark. Escalante decided to build his own version of a destination dining experience—this time in Calatagan, Batangas.
“I said I’m going to live outside the city and open a restaurant. In other countries, people travel for food. Why not here?”
He saw potential others missed. “Do you know the BPI ATM here is the VIP machine? Hindi ‘yan nauubusan ng pera, maski brownout may generator. All the big bosses go to Calatagan. Punta Fuego was already there.”
From dentistry school dropout to the visionary behind Antonio’s and Balai Dako, Tony Boy Escalante built two of the country’s most iconic dining destinations by trusting his instincts and chasing what felt right—even when it meant starting over from scratch.
He didn’t have a detailed plan when he left dentistry. What he had was clarity, conviction—and the courage to create a life built around passion, not obligation.
This article includes quotes from an interview originally published by Esquire Philippines, authored by Henry Ong.
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