There are some things you don’t really question when you’re a kid.
Like why your lola insists a certain soup is good for you, why you’re being served an ingredient that looks extraterrestrial, or why the food on your table somehow tastes better simply because your favorite tita made it.
Back then, you would just eat. Years later, however, you might start asking why. Somewhere in between those childhood memories and the questions that come with growing up, Guama World was born.
Created by friends Katrina Jao and Juliana Ong, Guama World is a creative project most famous for astonishing cakes and eye-catching jellies but it has quickly become something much harder to put in a box.
There are the cakes and jellies, of course, but there are also table set ups, mooncakes, pasta, flavors, textures, memories, and all the strange things that catch their attention along the way.
Basically, it’s their world—and we’re all just living in it.
Once Upon a Table
But, interestingly enough, everything actually started with tablescapes.
Jao had already been doing little side gigs in table styling under Moko Supper Club, but after her 28th birthday, she started to rethink the relationship between food and everything around it. Instead of afterthoughts or something that just sits on top of a plate, she wanted desserts to feel seamless on the table, eventually pushing her away from styling and towards getting her hands dirty with the food itself.
Serendipitously, this is also when she would meet Ong, who was manning her own pizza booth at an event in a restored Brutalist movie house in Cubao. The same movie house where Jao had held her 28th birthday.
“It just feels like it was meant to be,” Ong shared.
By that time, Ong already saw food as somewhat of a canvas, a medium that allowed her to play with flavors, textures, and traditional recipes. Jao, on the other hand, brought a background in styling and a desire to make the entire eating experience feel connected.
Put the two together, and Guama World started to take shape.
Meet Guama
The name comes from guama, the Filipino-Chinese term for maternal grandmother, but their version isn’t your typical grandmother figure.
For Jao, she’s headstrong. She might feed you something you don’t understand and insist that it’s good for you, and you probably won’t even question it just because she said so.
“We wanted to take that feeling—that very specific mix of care, stubbornness, mystery and really good food—and merge it with the way we like approaching things, which is a lot more playful,” she explained.
Ong sees another side of her: someone who has escaped the exhausting pressure of constantly having to produce or impress. Things are made by hand, at her own pace, simply because she enjoys making them.
A Little Weird, A Little Wonderful
If you want to understand their world, though, you probably shouldn’t start by looking for a particular color palette or aesthetic—because there isn’t really one.
Instead, the duo often finds themselves drawn to things that make them curious like unfamiliar objects, new places, old recipes, and even little moments of accidental joy. Sometimes, this is a baby-pink jeep, spray-painted flowers, or even foreign packaging.
They’re the kinds of things that probably weren’t designed to become inspiration. But that’s exactly what makes them interesting. After all, they’re all about stuff that’s playful without trying too hard.
Their own description says it best: “sometimes strange, often novel, always Guama.”
But “Always Guama” doesn’t mean everything needs to match. In fact, Jao made it clear that they don’t really have a rigid visual language where every creation has to share the same color, shape, or mood. It just has to make you curious. If it does that, then who cares if it’s pretty, ugly, cute, polished, ridiculous?
“Guama is less of a look, and more a feeling,” Ong added.
The Taste of Home, Reimagined
That feeling also comes from their Filipino-Chinese backgrounds.
A lot of their culinary curiosity comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Chinese cookbooks that require a little—or sometimes lots—of translation. They’re interested not just in how particular ingredients taste, but in the ways they’re traditionally believed to make you feel.
Then comes the Filipino side, which gives them plenty of room to play.
“We’re not very precious about tradition,” they shared.
For them, a traditional recipe can be turned upside down, an unexpected flavor can be added, and something familiar can take on an entirely different form. It’s less about changing tradition for the sake of changing it and more about looking at something familiar with a fresh set of eyes.
That seems to be the north star for their upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival pop-up, where Guama World will be serving its own mooncakes.
For Jao, the project brings her back to the black silkie chicken her own guama used to make. As a child, she had no idea why she was eating a tiny black chicken or why everyone was head over heels for it. But she ate it anyway because her beloved guama made it, which meant that there must be a reason.
Their mooncakes approach tradition with that same sense of curiosity. They’re taking the ingredients, rituals, and flavors that they grew up with and asking questions they perhaps couldn’t ask as children: Why? When? And how?
Welcome to the World
It’s this very same curiosity that guides them toward whatever comes next. It could be food, cake, cutlery, furniture, a table, a room, or some weird little experience they haven’t imagined yet.
After all, eating isn’t just about what happens in your mouth. It’s also what the food sits on, what you’re looking at, what you’re touching, what the room feels like, and it’s those tiny details that make an ordinary meal feel other worldly. And if Guama World has taught us anything so far, it’s that there’s no need to take any of it too seriously.
Be curious, be playful, and always be open to the idea of putting two unexpected things together to see what happens. It’ll probably be strange, maybe novel.
But if it feels even slightly magical, completely ridiculous, or worthy of a few questions—then it’s probably Guama.
While they’ve yet to explore a storefront, you can reach out for orders on Instagram at @guama.world.
Frequently Asked Questions
Guama World is a creative project by Katrina Jao and Juliana Ong that explores food, design, nostalgia, Filipino-Chinese traditions, and playful experimentation through cakes, jellies, tablescapes, mooncakes, and other projects.
Guama World was created by friends Katrina Jao and Juliana Ong, who bring together backgrounds in styling, food, flavor, and creative experimentation.
“Guama” is a Filipino-Chinese term for a maternal grandmother. For Jao and Ong, the figure represents a particular mix of care, stubbornness, mystery, tradition, and really good food.
Guama World is best known for its cakes and jellies, but its work extends to mooncakes, pasta, and even other food-related projects.
Their inspiration can come from Filipino-Chinese childhood memories, traditional Chinese recipes, TCM, unfamiliar ingredients, old recipes, unusual objects, packaging, colors, places, and small moments that spark curiosity.
To get in touch with Guama World, you can follow their Instagram at @guama.world.
