For Chele Gonzalez, cacao is more than chocolate
I’ve got to hand it to Chele Gonzalez for working hard, all while juggling daddy duties to little Ainara. Apart from the recent opening of Cantabria at The Westin Manila in Pasig and Asador Alfonso, a roasting house in Alfonso, Cavite, as well as preparing for a speaking engagement in the Canary Islands this June—“Encuentro de los Mares”—he managed to slip in a new menu for Gallery by Chele.
Even with the projects his name is attached to, his flagship restaurant, located in BGC, remains the place where he and culinary wingman-slash-business partner Carlos Villaflor explore expansive possibilities of cuisine. “It is where we bring to life the things we value—creativity, teamwork and learning,” he says.
With Stvdio Lab, their research and development kitchen, the tandem gets to turn their cutting-edge ideas into physical form, much like their current offering—a delicious exploration of cacao beyond chocolates. It is a fruit, after all.
“Years ago, we conducted research on cacao criollo in the Philippines. This is the variety of cacao that originated in America,” recalls Gonzalez.
“During our first research trip around the country, I was accompanied by Rob Crisostomo, who is our cacao producer. It was then that I had my first taste of cacao in its fruit form, right on the farms. I was captivated and inspired by the experience. It was a whole new world of flavors!
“Depending on the pod and variety, it ranged from lychee to rambutan, citrus and many other tropical fruit notes. I felt that this unique and delicious aspect of cacao needed to be showcased because once we only use it as chocolate, the beautiful flavors of the cacao fruit are lost.”
Exploring cacao flavors
With the knowhow and help of Crisostomo of Tigre Y Oliva Chocolate, they extract cacao pulp juice from the mucilage, a gluey substance produced by the plant. The liquid then undergoes a stabilization process and is concentrated into syrup, something he supplies to the chefs and which they consequently use as a sweet substitute in the Gallery’s new menu.
“I had the idea, since we also process coconut sap into coconut syrup and sugar,” says Crisostomo. “So I thought of doing the same with cacao, then we experimented with Chele to improve and explore the process further.”
To lessen wastage and make full use of the fruit, the chefs also use the cacao shells to make vinegar and kombucha, which act as veritable components in the dishes.
There’s a grouper ceviche seasoned with the pulp juice and tossed with corn kernels and cubed kamote served in a dried cacao pod; a nugget of duck breast with tender meat in gradient pink, surrounded with mole made with cacao and a side of beetroot; a sorbet made with the mucilage and nestled inside delicate meringue; and a cardamom chocolate mousse with cacao nibs, adorned with thin wafer shards.
The 10-course menu (there’s a shorter one with six courses) also features seafood numbers in the form of the octopus satay with laksa and mushrooms, pomfret with sitsaro peas and sinantolan sauce, lobster with calamansi beurre blanc, tuna belly prepared à la inasal and served with crispy chicken skin and Gonzalez’s favorite in the whole repertoire, which showcases crab.
“We developed a unique technique to make our aligue with pinakurat,” says Gonzalez. “We used steamed blue swimmer crab and locally sourced aligue as the main ingredients and created a dashi with dry shiitake, ginger, lemongrass and other local aromatics. We emulsified it with burnt butter to give it our signature Gallery style. Finally, we added mint, Thai basil and dayap to finish the complexity of the dish.”
“The Unknown Faces of Cacao” menu in Gallery by Chele is not merely sustenance, but also an education about and appreciation for the fruit. INQGallery by Chele is at 5/F Clipp Center, 11th Avenue corner 39th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.
