Margarita Forés’ next chapter: Her ‘greatest hits’ in dream resto
Margarita Forés likes starting big things on her birthday, March 23. Fifteen years ago, she opened Lusso in Greenbelt 5 on that day. Eleven years ago, she did the same thing with Grace Park Dining at One Rockwell.
When she turned 65 last Saturday at an intimate gathering at Lusso, she marked that milestone with an announcement: She was going to do something she had always wanted to do—finally put up her signature restaurant. The name? Why, Margarita, of course.
It’s local culinary lore how Forés traveled to Italy in 1986 and had a salad in Florence that changed her life. “It blew me away with its simplicity. The dish was so subtle but just celebrated the beauty of the ingredients that were on the plate,” she recalled in a video presentation.
One of the ingredients was palm hearts. She asked where the establishment sourced their palm hearts. They handed her a can from Puerto Rico. “I was, like, in Manila, you can just chop palm hearts off the tree and serve it,” she said with incredulity. “I can do this when I go back.”
Return she did, starting with an Italian-leaning catering service called Cibo di Marghi in 1988. But it was her creation of the contemporary Italian restaurant chain Cibo in 1997 that really sparked the Forés restaurant revolution. Today, Cibo has 26 branches. There’s also The Loggia by Margarita Forés in Parañaque City and Museya Kafé at Makati’s Ayala Museum. The much-missed Café Bola is even coming back.
Forés even has flower arrangement, homeware and wellness lines. She sells a selection of bottled goods such as Spicy Tuyo Fillets, Pampanga Crab Fat and Batwan Concentrate.That is a lot, and Forés wanted to get it all under one brand, under the Margarita banner, with her signature as the logo. It is a gorgeous logo, owing to her flowing, calligraphic penmanship.
“Margarita Forés has been a little confused,” she told the small audience. “I use a lot of Italian names for my brands. I think tonight is about streamlining everything and just using one name. It’s just ‘Margarita.’ That is the brand that will carry the legacy to the future.”
The catering is now Margarita, too. The restaurants will all keep their names—especially Cibo, which is actually a separate business entity. But the other lines will now be M Flowerscapes, M Home, M Wellness, and the bottled goods will also be under the M branding. The website (margaritafores.com) is up and running, and it will soon be recalibrated as an e-commerce platform.
But at the heart of this announcement was the restaurant that will bear her name. “We’re doing what has to be the stamp for me for this time in my life,” she said. “I would like to do my signature restaurant. It’s actually my son Amado who’s been bugging me about it. He said, ‘Mom, you don’t have a nice kitchen where you can invite chefs to come collaborate with you.’”
Fantastic location
The restaurant will have a fantastic location: at the Shops at the Ayala Triangle, at the corner of Paseo de Roxas and Makati Avenue, behind the Lapulapu statue. “I’m so blessed to have been awarded that space because it’s such an iconic space and I would like to do my signature restaurant there for people to enjoy,” she told Lifestyle. The restaurant will have two stories—one for à la carte dining; the second for small group tastings that converts into a bar.
The restaurant is being designed by Sean Dix, who also designed Amado’s BGC joint, Steak & Frice. “The design will be a reflection of Margarita’s personal style, minimalist but a bit quirky, sophisticated but friendly, comfortable but very chic,” said Dix in a video message. Forés said Dix “knows what inspires me. He knows I like bling but in an understated way.”
Like the design, they’re still working on the menu. But Forés mentioned Pepato, formerly at Greenbelt 2, a lot, something which seemed to encapsulate Forés’ culinary ethos. It certainly sounds that way when you ask her about the prospective menu: “My greatest hits, actually a lot of things I’ve done through the years and a lot of new creative things using beautiful Filipino ingredients enhanced with the best of the world.”
She hopes to open Margarita by the end of 2024.
Walk through time
This could be gathered from the items served at her birthday dinner, which she described as a “walk through time.”
“This is the salad I spoke of,” she said of the salad of palm hearts shavings with 30-month Parmigiano Reggiano, button mushrooms, celery, and extra virgin olive oil. It indeed was so simple but inspiring, a small dish that spawned a 37-year culinary empire.
Next was what Forés called one of her “Eurekas!” from Italy, where she liked to eat prosciutto with figs, but she imagined using chico instead. So she served a chico sorbet with Prosciutto Gold aged in an oak barrel, drizzled with balsamic vinegar from Modena. The familiar taste of the chico contrasted well with the leaf of aged pork.
The next course was inspired by a trip to Venice, where she had seafood ravioli. She thought, “’Our crabs in the Philippines are the best, and crab fat is my favorite ingredient.’ So when I went home, I made a crab ravioli using water spinach or kangkong for the pasta and put Negros blue crab inside. Instead of a lemon cream from Venice, I used a calamansi cream and then drizzled it with taba ng talangka.” It was as good a sinful seafood dish as she described it.
The penultimate course was the most intimidating, lamb adobo with balsamic vinegar and tinigib. “For our adobo, we usually use soy sauce and garlic and chicken or pork, but for me, using lamb represents the best of what the dish can be, because the gaminess of the lamb is tempered by the cooking style of the adobo,” she explained. “Using balsamic vinegar is more gentle than our local vinegar. This was on the Pepato menu.”
She was right. The lamb fell off the bone and had just a hint of gaminess as well as saltiness. It was perfectly complemented by the tinigib, the polenta-like mash made by Negros farmers from rice and corn grits.
The dessert was especially inspired. “This is the most beautiful combination to eat together, cheese and jam, and this is a play on that,” she said.
She put a Grana Padano spuma between two crisp wafers of Parmigiano Regianno with another favorite, guava jelly, and adorned with a sprig of dama de noche. It was just sweet enough with a delicate mix of textures.
Forés was still buzzing after the birthday dinner: “It’s still heartwarming for me to be around after all these years, but I make sure I still have a child-like wonder to learn, despite being in the business for so long. It’s a good push to continue.” She said she was confident about working with her son, who understands the market of his age. Compared to when she started out, she said, “I’m more excited but with a more level-headed approach.”
Forés often returned to a quote—“Never forget how you started, never forget where you came from”—from her beloved grandfather Amado Forés. “Since I did start with a catering business, I will never give that up and I want to give it a showcase, and Margarita will be that.”
