Lawrence Letrero and Raquel Quadreny have always pushed the envelope with their Ravenswood restaurant, Bayan Ko. When they opened it in 2018, they found the intersection points of Filipino and Cuban cuisines and turned those into a wholly original fusion. Their latest radical moves? Transforming the restaurant (1810 W. Montrose Ave.) into a five-course tasting menu spot and opening a casual all-day diner a few doors down (1820 W. Montrose Ave.).

Letrero had long considered executing a tasting menu, even before launching Bayan Ko. “But I looked at the neighborhood and didn’t want to put that pressure on myself,” he says. He and Quadreny stuck with à la carte until this spring. That’s when a new opportunity presented itself: taking over the location that once housed Glenn’s Diner, which closed two years ago. “We so loved the original [Glenn’s] space, and we wanted to keep it a diner since we felt the neighborhood needed it,” Letrero says. But they also didn’t want to have two restaurants in such close proximity competing against each other. Hence the move to a $95 tasting menu at Bayan Ko.

“I really dial into certain dishes we love that are ‘traditional’ and try to elevate them using techniques I learned throughout my career,” Letrero says of the new menu. To that end, he uses premium ingredients and turns them into upscale dishes like a black rice arroz caldo that incorporates a quail egg and lobster and his take on vaca frita featuring wagyu along with plantains.

Meanwhile, Bayan Ko Diner lets Letrero explore breakfast favorites from both the Philippines and Cuba, while pulling in classic American diner elements. There’s a hash, of course, but here it’s a sisig with chopped pork belly, potatoes, shishito peppers, and soy and black vinegar aïoli. The menu has three breakfast burritos: American, Filipino, and Cubano. The Cubano is stuffed with brisket ropa vieja, scrambled eggs, plantains, Swiss cheese, and black beans. The silogs, Filipino breakfast plates, adhere to tradition, like the baby bangus (“a little fish you marinate with soy sauce, vinegar, black pepper, and a ton of garlic and fry so it gets nice and crispy,” Letrero says), which comes alongside garlic rice, a fried egg, and a tomato-cucumber salad. If you miss some original Bayan Ko dishes, like lumpia, croquetas, and chicken wings with adobo glaze, you’ll find them here.

The diner also allows Letrero to have some fun with dishes: “I worked brunch many times in my career and had to do standard French toast. Now that I have my own brunch place, it’s tempura batter with cinnamon and vanilla. We deep-fry it until it puffs up, and then I make guava syrup and serve it with sweetened whipped cream cheese.” His inspiration for it? “Disney World.”