Knowing his taro from his maniota
At the Waterline Chef Allan Florita constructs a fusion of international flavours and styles.

Allan Florita is no stranger to pressure when it comes to running a kitchen.
The 30-year-old native of Subic Bay, the Philippines, received his first baptism of fire when he was part of the catering team for the 1995 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in his hometown. When you’re charged with feeding world leaders, there’s no margin for mistakes.
Florita faced the same heat the very first day he arrived on Rarotonga as the new chef at the Waterline Restaurant & Beach Bar. His body still fizzing from jetlag, he was recruited straight from the airport and into the kitchen when owner Chris Musselle found himself short-handed for that evening’s service.
The one advantage Florita had over chefs imported from other parts of the world is that he already possessed a working knowledge of tropical ingredients and so knew his taro from his maniota.
“The rukau and the ika mata we also have in the Philippines,” he says during a break before the dinner rush. “But in a different way. The rukau, they just cook it here fresh. In the Philippines, we dry it up so it won’t become itchy when you try to taste it.
“With the ika mata, we don’t use the coconut cream. We just serve it marinated with the lime, ginger and chilli.”
Florita doesn’t have any formal culinary training. Everything he knows, he acquired through experience, starting with observing his mother in the family kitchen.
“My mom used to cook a lot for us, so it’s in the blood,” he says.
His career includes several stints in hotels and eateries in the Philippines, as well as two years cooking steaks to Western taste in a restaurant in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Bahrain.
He was working as the head chef at a Korean restaurant in the Philippines when he was contacted by Geoffrey Porter, who was helping to recruit a new chef for the Waterline.
The challenges may have started on his first day on the island, but they didn’t end there. The kitchen space, for instance, wasn’t what he was accustomed to.
“The workplace was kind of small when I first came here but, after a year, it was expanded a bit,” he says. “But it’s still not the same size you have when you work in a hotel or a big restaurant. Here, I have to accommodate everything on a five-burner stovetop. That’s a challenge.”
As for what’s on offer each night, Florita prefers to construct a fusion of international flavours and styles.
“I put together the influences of East and West and try to come up with a menu that will fit into this type of environment,” he says. “To make the dishes more tasty, I use a mix of fresh spices, and then enhance it with broth.”
Musselle says there are several reasons why locals and visitors alike return to the Waterline, starting with Florita’s talents.
“It’s variety, as well as Allan’s ability to make food taste good,” Musselle says. “He’s got an incredible skill with spices – he’s very creative.”
Along with adapting to a new workspace, Florita and his wife, Sally, were also faced with setting down roots on a small island.
“The lifestyle is very different from where I come from,” Florita says. “I lived in a city where there is nightlife every night. Not here. But that’s not a problem for me. We really don’t go out that often. We’re homebodies, my wife and I.”
And when they do stay in, it’s Sally who prepares most of the meals, being a skilled cook in her own right.
“On a scale of one to 10, she’s an eight,” says Florita. “My style is more complicated than hers. She is better at home cooking.”

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