Saving Maria Luisa’s Garden Room: An ode to an enduring hideaway

MANILA, Philippines - Everyone seems to be competing with each other on Instagram to eat at (and post #foodporn photos from) the next restaurant-of-the-moment before it actually becomes the restaurant-of-the-moment. So when people actually want to keep a place a secret, you know it’s got to be special.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a stretch to keep Maria Luisa’s Garden Room a secret. After all, this lovely French restaurant is also hidden in a humble and beautiful garden near the corner of EDSA and Ayala Avenue — that crazy, busy intersection of buses, jeepneys and cars that fly by. The Makati Garden Club (MGC) has been holding their headquarters in this 2,500-sqm. piece of land on Recoletos Street since the 1970s, and after years of exchanging dishes and recipes during their meetings, they realized that a small café would be a perfect addition to their garden.

After all, in all the great gardens around the world, there’s usually a small place where you can buy a little something to munch and sip while taking in the glorious surroundings. This would also help them raise funds for many of the charities that they contribute to. Maria Luisa’s Garden Room (named after their founder Maria Luisa Perez-Rubio, who was instrumental in getting Enrique Zobel, the owner of the lot, to allow them to use the space when they started) opened quietly in May of this year, serving French specialties in a warm and homey atmosphere by chef Robert Lilja of Savoy Bistro fame.

Since then, it has become the best- and worst-kept secret of the foodie world. As most people drive right past it (probably heading to the next ramen bar), foodies, celebrities, past and current presidents, and even the A to Z of high society (Aranetas to Zobels) are walking on the short, stone path that leads into the garden and the small restaurant. It’s like everyone has fallen in love with the amazing food and the charming ambience, but have agreed to keep mum about it.

Despite the restaurant quietly gaining more fans (Anton Diaz of the wildly popular website Our Awesome Planet, for example, has already named it one of the “10 Most Awesome New Restaurants in Manila 2013”), another secret got out: after a few short months, they were going to close.

Patrons were shocked and saddened by this news, and I felt like I had just discovered an awesome new band and was in the middle of unwrapping my just-bought CD (yes, I still buy CDs—support the music industry!) when they announced their retirement. Determined to experience it before their doors close for good, I dragged my family to say hello and goodbye to this hideaway.

As soon as we stepped in, I felt like we had entered a French country house, with mismatched garden chairs, black-and-white floral tablecloths, watercolor paintings of baguettes and olive oil, and floral accents on the wallpaper. Most French restaurants give off a hoity-toity vibe and make you nervous that you can’t pronounce most of the entrées, but here you feel right at home. There was a shelf of freshly baked artisan bread beside the entrance, its doughy smell wafting in the air and making us all hungrier. Good thing we were served dainty, delicious appetizers as soon as we settled into our chairs: cherry tomatoes with pork foie gras on small medallions of pumpernickel bread, and a basket of sourdough bread.

As we pored over the menu, the chef approached us and offered to help. We were pleasantly surprised; today, most chefs are hailed as rock stars (“Yes, chef! Thank you, chef!” boom the contestants of culinary competitons such as Top Chef and Master Chef) and stay in the kitchen to keep their aura of mystique and celebrity. There’s none of that here—although chef Robert admits that people do act like fanatics when it comes to his mussels, the specialty of the house. “In Boracay or even in Hong Kong International Airport, people run after me yelling, ‘Mussels! Mussels!’” he laughs.

Yes, his Moules Baltazar are legendary, and these large and fresh Chilean Mussels are served two ways: with wine and cream (called Les Chef) or with parsley and garlic (Mariniére). Fans of French cuisine will immediately be drawn to the Mariniére, as it reminds them of Moules Frites (a popular Flemish dish with mussels and fries) but chef Robert told me to try the Les Chef one. “That’s why it’s called Les Chef!” he winks, and on a more serious note, assures me: “You will be converted.” And indeed, when the pot of mussels arrived, swimming in a thick white soup of wine, cream, and a sprinkle of parsley, they tasted heavenly. Even when we had consumed every mussel hiding in the shells, we tore off hunks of the sourdough bread and sopped up the cream until no drop was left. (We were the dishwasher’s dream come true.)

Chef Robert is from Sweden, and so the food isn’t traditionally French, but French-Scandinavian. When asked what the difference is, he looks in the distance with a furrowed brow, thinking carefully. “We use a lot of produce. For example, in duck confit, we use cranberry — which the French would never use.” (The cranberry sauce is indeed a welcome and lovely garnish to their duck confit.) He shrugs. “It’s…something. It’s more crazy!” We nod approvingly. Everybody likes a little crazy when it comes to food, and we loved the generous and creative use of ingredients: Spinach, olive oil, garlic and pumpkin with pan- fried salmon; mushrooms and gruyere cheese baked with prawns; and a wealth of seafood (salmon, red snapper, clams, crab claws) baked in a soup of olives and tomatoes.

However, one thing they don’t go crazy with is the quality. Their steaks, for example, are all 50 days aged and from Omaha. All their delicious breads are baked in-house every day. It didn’t matter which dish it was, from the Tuna Tartar Platter (with avocado, mangoes and spices) or the Merlot Braised Oxtail. Every bite was exquisite, and followed with sips of wine, was perfection.

As dinner progressed, I could only imagine the family dinners, the first dates, the ladies-who-lunch lunches, and barkada brunches that happened here in a few short months. Manila is packed with countless restaurants, bars, cafés, and bistros, and while many of these places can have their 15 minutes of fame as the restaurant-of-the-moment, not all can be that special place that feels both at home and special at the same time. Whether it’s a special occasion or just another dinner, Maria Luisa’s Garden Club is the perfect place. It’s not just the French food that makes this place so beloved (although it makes a very, very good case for it); it’s the fact that there’s a beautiful and serene garden wrapped around it, despite EDSA being right next door.

Hidden away from the typical metropolitan atmosphere, guests are more willing to exchange pieces of gossip, words of wisdom, sweet nothings, cries for help, and laughs over the delicious dishes. It’s inevitable that Metro Manila will be swamped with high-rise buildings and sprawling malls, but we will always want and need that garden escape.

More than ever, I was convinced that if they indeed close their doors forever, it’s as if every trendy ramen bar, cupcake shop, gastropub or speakeasy triumphs over this enduring restaurant; as if we choose fleeting fashions and tastes over enduring sanctuaries and relationships; as if we’re locking the doors to the Secret Garden created by Frances Hodgson Burnett, throwing away the key and then heading to the nearest mall.

Some secrets are meant to be kept, but I’m sure the fans and patrons of Maria Luisa’s Garden Room would agree that it’s time to get the word out about it so that we can stop them from closing. If people can use social media to propel a restaurant’s popularity, they can certainly use it to save one, and it deserves to be saved! Let’s start the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, whichever social media you use, or — if you’re old school — through letters to the Makati Garden Club, to the Ayala Corporation (who leases the lot to them), to urban developers who believe in preserving pieces of greenery in the city, to passionate foodies, and to anyone who can make a difference.

The Makati Garden Club created a true hideaway, something that people need more than another trendy restaurant, and I sincerely hope we can all come together to keep their doors open. If not, I can only hope that the Makati Garden Club finds another oasis where they can allow it to bloom again.

* * *

The Makati Garden Club is located on Recoletos Street corner Ayala Avenue, Barangay Urdaneta, Makati City. For more information, call 552-7051 or 552-7045.