Vince Bugtong stands in a basement kitchen, studying a tray of green ume, a Japanese plum. Though he hasn’t worked with the ingredient before, he has devised a plan to braise the tart little stone fruits in syrup and combine them with lychee to make a marmalade. It will be served with the Italian doughnuts called zeppole at Piccino, the Dogpatch restaurant where he is the pastry chef. 

“I know the flavor and acidity and earthiness will go with a floral flavor like lychee,” Bugtong says. “I like a challenge.” 

This underground kitchen is Bugtong’s lab, where he cooks up experimental ideas like a riff on a Spanish and Filipino layer cake made with French buttercream and nuts. It’s based on a recipe he used when he was executive pastry chef at Viridian Bar in Oakland in 2020, when the groundbreaking cocktail destination burst onto the dining scene — and when Bugtong “came out of his shell” and earned a reputation for infusing Filipino and Asian flavors into desserts.

He went on to become co-pastry chef at modern Filipino restaurant Abacá in San Francisco and, in 2023, earned a James Beard nomination for outstanding pastry chef or baker. Then he took a two-year break from restaurants — it was a struggle to find a sustainable work-life balance — and worked at a gelateria in Redwood City.

Now he’s at Piccino, better than ever, and still pushing boundaries with unique combinations of Asian flavors. But this time, you could say, he’s in his Italian era. 

• How a former Google employee turned a Mission picnic into an international cake craze

When Bugtong staged (the culinary equivalent of an audition) for the restaurant’s owners, Sheryl Rogat and Margherita Sagan, it was an immediate match. 

“Vince has the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old with the skills of a 50-year-old,” Sagan says. (In fact, Bugtong is 32.) 

Bugtong and a small team produce breads, pastries, and plated desserts for Piccino and the Piccino Coffee Bar next door. Since he started in September, he has increased the coffee shop’s daily assortment of pastries from 10 to 17.

Menu staples include a ginger scone, a chocolate chip cookie, and a banana muffin. (The scone is Sagan’s recipe, the same she baked for the original Blue Bottle kiosk in Hayes Valley.) On a recent Wednesday, there were also syrup-glazed chocolate croissants, a danish with strawberry guava jam and Meyer lemon curd, a scallion scone, and mini señora bread — Bugtong’s take on Filipino bakery Starbread’s locally famous señorita bread.

“I’ve been simplifying my desserts a lot more,” Bugtong says, “but I still put my flair on it.”

Have thoughts on this story?

He knew he had to perfect a croissant, the pastry for which San Franciscans will famously wait in line for hours. For that, he has the help of Jose Pinto, pastry cook at the Presidio Piccino restaurant, who previously worked at Arsicault.

Bugtong is also tasked with making focaccia for the mortadella takeout sandwiches sold in the coffee shop and bread and desserts for the restaurant. He makes gelato and ice cream from scratch and added a bananas Foster dessert inspired by the cafe’s signature banana muffin.

His two years away from intense restaurant culture awakened his Italian obsession, he says. While working at the gelateria, he attended SIGEP World — the international gelato convention — for research and development. During that trip, his first to Italy, he discovered flavors like fior di latte and gianduia, a chocolate and hazelnut confection that he now makes for Piccino.

His expanded horizons have inspired him to continue charting new territory as he marries European baking techniques with Asian American flavors. “I want people to be comfortable with what they know and also try something exciting and new at the same time.”