Amid the constant stream of additions to Dupont Circle’s restaurant scene emerges a new daytime cafe, Morena, the morning counterpart to a D.C. favorite Filipino restaurant Kayu.
Currently operating as a weekend-only pop-up that launched April 25, Morena serves as a test run as the team gauges community interest in the new joint, hoping to expand to a full-time schedule, including weekdays, in the near future. Morena’s opening on 17th Street marks owner and chef Paolo Dungca’s effort to expand Filipino cuisine within D.C.’s food scene while creating a relaxed daytime space to contrast Kayu’s formal evening dinner service, with the concept drawing strong support from the local community, hosting busy crowds each weekend.
Dungca said the idea for Morena was “long overdue” after guests from Hiraya, Dungca’s previous cafe that closed last June, mourned the cafe’s closure. The cafe closed after nearly two years of business following a dissolved partnership between Dungca and his former partners, Juan and Jeremy Canlas.
“I think our guests from the previous location have been wanting to see us bring this back to life, and it was one of those nights where Chef Julie and I were just brainstorming other ways we can continue to push our heritage to the forefront,” Dungca said.
As of now, Morena only operates on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. as the team tests the cafe concept and popularity among the Dupont Circle community. Dungca said Morena differentiates itself from Hiraya with its atmosphere and creative direction, with the Dupont space creating an “intimate” environment compared to the larger feel of their previous cafe. He said Morena’s menu is starkly different from Hiraya, offering more creative lattes, matchas and Filipino-inspired rice bowls compared to Hiraya’s menu of larger breakfast plates.
“Things that are in the past should just be left in the past, and we wanted to create something that is new to us, at least, and I think there’s always a lot of creative ideas that we have that we can keep pushing for this new concept,” Dungca said.
Rather than centering the menu around traditional Filipino dishes, Dungca said Morena brings a more modern Filipino-American perspective to each plate. He said that many restaurants still associate Filipino cuisine primarily with popular dishes like adobo, while Morena aims to showcase flavors from Filipino meals that are often overlooked in D.C.’s restaurant scene, including lattes inspired by Filipino desserts like bilo-bilo matcha, derived from the flavors of sticky rice balls in coconut milk.
“I think Filipino cuisine is the ultimate fusion cuisine, it has a lot of inspirations from Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and even down south, the southern islands,” Dungca said. “There’s just different inspirations from Indonesia, Singapore and all that.”
Dungca said the specialty lattes represent nostalgic flavors from his childhood, transformed into drinks that have a modern and experimental feel. The drink menu also features the introduction of matcha and specialty lattes like an ube horchata latte and a bibingka latte, with flavors from the traditional Filipino baked rice cake of salted egg caramel.
“It teaches us to teach the guests of how we grew up here in America,” Dungca said. “At the end of the day, we are Filipino-American, and that is the kind of story that we would want to portray, and it’s never going to be the traditional dishes that you would often see in Filipino restaurants.”
Morena’s interior features a coffee bar and extensive indoor seating, with the walls covered with art, mirrors and green-bordered windows. The outside seating is also extensively decorated with string lights and umbrellas for sunny D.C. days.
Dungca also said that creating Morena allowed the team to emphasize female leadership within the restaurant industry, which he described as the core of the restaurant’s identity, primarily due to Executive Chef Julie Cortes’ leadership. Cortes said the name Morena in Spanish translates to the darker skin complexion of many Filipina women.
Cortes said the smaller menu, featuring four rice bowls and two sandwich options, allows the staff to focus on creativity while still drawing inspiration from Filipino flavors. Cortes said the cafe was intentionally designed as a casual grab-and-go spot with menu items served in to-go boxes.
“I think D.C. is a more diverse city, and I think the Morena Cafe adds to the D.C. scene just by bringing more cultural representation like Filipino-ish, we call it, inspired taste, and then in a modern way while supporting local food culture too,” Cortes said.
When developing the menu, Cortes said she wanted to rethink many of the previous Hiraya dishes, while developing modern ideas. Rather than focusing on traditional brunch options, Cortes said the team worked to build the menu around familiar Filipino ingredients and flavors through small details like replacing standard garlic fried rice with Java rice, a traditional Filipino rice made with turmeric. She said the team wanted to move away from expectations of what Filipino food is supposed to look like.
Since opening, Dungca and Cortes said the response from the neighborhood has been positive, with familiar faces from Hiraya and new customers returning every weekend.
“I think the support from the people has been really immense, and it’s just nice for us to be able to cook for the people and for the neighborhood to show up. That’s always been the goal for us,” Dungca said.
