Celebrating our most talented chefs
The annual Tatler Dining Awards has become a much-anticipated event among chefs and restaurateurs, not only because the who’s who in the industry get to celebrate the past year’s achievements, but also because guests get to take a break from kitchen work and revel in the company of each other over good food and drink.
This year’s ceremony, held in partnership with HSBC at the Grand Ballroom of Shangri-La The Fort, handed out plaques of recognition to 20 of the best restaurants in the country, as voted by select judges as well as Tatler Dining editor Isabel Martel Francisco and Tatler Dining officer Lauren Golangco.
The special awards named Stephan Duhesme of Metiz as the Chef of the Year, Aurora by Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar as the Best New Restaurant, Toyo Eatery as the Restaurant of the Year and Best Service, Antonio’s Group as the Restaurateur of the Year, Don Baldosano of Linamnam as the Rising Star and Helm by Josh Boutwood as Best Interior Design.
Moderne
Chef of the Year 2022 recipient Miko Calo recently collaborated with 2023’s Rising Star Jorge Mendez in a two-night dinner called Moderne (March in Metronome and April in Modan) that fused the former’s French flair with the latter’s Japanese expertise. The tandem was formed during a conversation they had in Mendez’s recent pop-up at Ramen Ron.
“We got to talk about our obsession with technique and realized that it would be great to create some dishes together and do a dinner,” says Calo.
“In this collab, we decided to showcase each other’s strengths by making dishes and adding to each a touch that we both know will highlight our ways of cooking,” says Mendez.
The meal started with a handful of snacks: char-grilled octopus and smoked eel with pommes amandine; beetroot tartare with roquefort espuma; liver mousse with ichigo gel and soy macaron; and animo with cheesecake cream and apple namasu.
Crossing watersEach chef brought their A game as they alternately served plates that brought forward their creativity and capacity. Among my favorites were the tamarind-glazed tamago that sat on cepes puree, and the gambero rosso on a pool of capsicum tosa.
It was only in the final two dishes that the chefs married components they worked on together—the delicate halibut cooked by Mendez was complemented by Calo’s duo of sauces (foyot and kamias caramel), and then she prepared a duck and foie roulade with a tamarillo teriyaki and duck jus while he made the shirako rice.Kevin Uy, who got inspired by Virgilio Martinez’s talk in Madrid Fusion Manila 2016 and eventually earned a chef’s position in Martinez’s lauded restaurant Central in Peru, is currently on a work break. While he’s in Manila, he touched base with friend Baldosano and hosted an 11-course dinner for select media and friends in his family’s residence in Ortigas.
The two young chefs had been in cahoots for months, developing a collaborative menu that was simply waiting to happen. Fortunately, they were able to immortalize their culinary conversations last week.
There was an iteration of an arepa that sandwiched a wedge of aged flounder and baby spinach; a delicious arroz con pato made with adlai, pumpkin and yellow chili; a ceviche of maya-maya with a cushion of sweet potato puree, onion ash and leche de tigre soured with libas leaves; and an uray laing with monggo chips and freeze-dried potato.
It was a menu that introduced me to Filipino and Peruvian ingredients I was not really familiar with, which made the meal not just satisfying but most interesting and educational as well. INQFollow the author @fooddudeph on Instagram.
