Experiencing the finer things in Italian cooking

Oftentimes, I am asked and ask people if a newly opened restaurant is expensive. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all want value for our hard-earned money. Or, as my good friend chef Myrna Segismundo says, "volume for money," referring, of course, to buffets, which Filipinos are fond of.

Everyone has a vice, be it drinking, gambling, womanizing, shopping till one drops dead, and so on. If you have to pick up a vice, I suggest you choose food. Have you ever heard of anyone going broke because of food? Maybe going broken-hearted because of a dish of the other kind, that is. No matter how expensive food is and how much you like it, you will have to stop when you’re full or tired of it, whichever comes first. I didn’t say that. It’s what my wife Mary Ann said she learned from her Grandma, who was a known foodie during her time. Mary Ann did not only heed her advice, she also went a step further and married a chef (kuning)! But that’s another story. Anyway, try to have a second or a third helping of foie gras and you’ll see what I mean. One can only take so much of a good thing, no matter how good it may be.

Recently, Mary Ann and I took a break from work and stayed in Manila for four days. There was nothing on our itinerary but visits to as many restaurants we have heard so much about. Well, it’s partly work for this column.

Food, like most things in life, is a matter of personal taste and preference. Thus, one will most likely always get contradicting opinions. It is a very subjective matter. The best tip I can give is to try to see for yourself if a restaurant pleases your palette and your wallet for that matter. And that is exactly what we did.

Of the several places we visited, the most memorable was lunch at Pepato. In Italian, pepato simply means peppered. In Greenbelt 2, Pepato is the fine dining Italian restaurant of chef patron Margarita Fores, she of the highly successful and popular Cibo and Café Bola chains. Our expectations were very high. After all, chef Margarita, who trained and immersed herself extensively in Italy, is the current caterer to the chic and well-heeled Manila society, including the current tenant in Malacañang for two state dinners to boot.

The setting nowadays is given as much importance as the food. The stage design sets the mood for the food drama about to unfold. Pepato is ultra modern, with a huge glass-stepped spiral staircase dominating the ground floor leading to more seating on the second floor, which is adorned with the chef’s collection of peppermills collected from all over the world. The wood and marble floor and chairs give a beautiful contrast to the copper-colored huge keyboards on the wall. Its very high ceiling, color scheme and choice of materials put together give it an extravagant ambiance, though a little restraint could have been used. One could easily imagine dining in Las Vegas, especially with the two humongous amber-colored chandeliers dominating the second floor. I am, of course, exaggerating. But the hot water from the rest room’s tap is indeed a nice touch, though a much-simplified décor would have made the tiny rest room more spacious. I spent a little over a minute fascinated about how to turn the tricky taps.

We started with the pan-seared goose liver with Armagnac and candied santol. The melt-in-the-mouth foie gras was brown on the outside, but moist in the inside, with the candied santol having just the right sweetness as a foil to the richness of the foie gras.

I highly recommend the trio of squash flower, oyster mushroom and zucchini fritters. It was very light but indeed crisp to the bite, perfectly battered and fried.

However, what bowled us over was the black squid ink crostini with buffalo mozzarella and anchovy. The bread, baked in the premises, is made black with squid ink, and is simply out of this world. It’s the first time I’ve come across this dish, savoring and wanting for more.

There were still other courses coming. That’s exactly why it’s called an appetizer in the first place.

Of course, we had to have pasta. After all, we were in an Italian restaurant. We ordered the linguini all scoglio, which is shrimp, vongole, calamari and crab in plum tomatoes for a light pasta. A tempting and promising pasta is the new taglierini de lusso with pan-fried goose liver, which we passed up on after having foie gras for appetizer. This one sounded really deadly rich, and you will need good Chianti to wash it down, which Pepato has a good stock of.

By now, we were getting full, but we decided to try the house specialty, which is Bistecca Florentina-style US Angus steak. This costs P1,995, but will serve two diners. Mary Ann wants her steak medium, while I want mine (large – just kidding!) rare. We told the waiter our preferences. He left our table with a quizzical look and placed our order. (Believe me, we are no easy customers). To please us both, the steak was sliced in several big strips, half were rare and the other half medium. Now, that’s what I call the customer being king (and queen for that matter). The beef was so tender, not masked by the taste of any marinade or gravy, but was simply served with fresh lemon and rock salt to highlight the beef’s super quality. Also available among the meat courses, if you still crave for more foie gras, is the veal loin scallopine with goose liver cream.

There is an interesting selection of cheeses, too. By now, you would want to pass up on the dessert, but that would be a shame. The lady chef is famous for her pastries and sweets. We tremendously enjoyed the almond mascarpone mille foglie, which was thin, light and crispy phyllo pastry balanced by the richness of creamy mascarpone with fresh mango and plum slices on the side. There are eight other choices on the dessert menu for the sweet toothed, including an innovative cheesecake made with caprino (goat cheese) with some candied fennel bits.

Normally, I find Italian food on the heavy side, more so if you follow the Italian dictum of eating. I could never get pass the pasta course. Nevertheless, during this lunch at Pepato, I surprisingly got through the main course and still had some room for dessert to boot. It’s no wonder that Italians end their meals with a strong espresso. You need the caffeine kick to be able to get up from your seat. Well, come to think of it, Mary Ann and I shared all of the dishes, albeit hating kapatid.

However, going back to Chef Margarita’s cooking. Her secret, if I may say so, is her resiliency and daring as an expert chef with her access to the best (and expensive) ingredients, honed only by years of trials, experimentations and experiences in and out of the kitchen, stumbling along the way, but never afraid to get back on her feet, learning to be more daring. In short, she has her act together. I should know. I was witness when she debuted as chef back in 1987 at the Hyatt’s Hugo, to the many catering services I attended through the years, including some not so successful lunches served at 4 p.m. or dinners past 12 midnight. She’s gone a long, long way.

Chef Margarita dares to experiment on new ideas and innovated traditional Italian cooking but certainly knows when to stop. She is successful in achieving the elusive distinct taste diners would remember and come back for. Pepato probably serves the best Italian food in the country.

Is Pepato expensive? Is diamond expensive? Is Louie Vuitton expensive? The first class cloud nine fare at Pepato is worth every cent. Surely, there is a price to pay for the finer things in life.