The ultra-modern tapas bar is here

When you’re in Spain — as I was for two weeks last year to study flamenco — it’s impossible not to get caught up in the food scene. It’s a gastronome’s heaven over there: for one meal alone you have the option of hitting a jamon “museum” for an appetizer, a paella restaurant for a main course and a churros café for dessert.

As damaging as that might be to a dancer’s waistline, anyone who eats in España quickly realizes that the tapas bar is the heart and soul of Spanish cuisine. Traditional tapas bars are like extensions of Spaniards’ living rooms except with no chairs: you stand at the bar, order a drink and they give you a free plate of patatas bravas or some other bite-size nibbles to wash down with that drink. Elbow to elbow with the other patrons you can socialize as much as you want, smoking is permitted and everyone feels so at home they usually just throw their paper napkins on the floor.

Protein of champions: The fresh Angus-beef tartar de toro Photos by FERNAN NEBRES

But in culinary hotspots like Barcelona, Madrid and San Sebastian (where the tapas are called “pintxos,”), modern tapas bars are rapidly replacing the old ones; a new breed of Spanish chef is experimenting with multiculti fusions, and the only limits to what he puts on a plate are that of his imagination and the size of the tableware.

Wanting to bring that kind of vibrant spirit and exciting food to Manila, half-German chef brothers Daniel and Patrick Hesse recently opened Cova, a tapas and sangria bar on Jupiter Street in Makati.

As soon as you set foot in this modern bar, you know you’re not in trad territory anymore. With its ceiling curving down in wavy, organic lines, you feel like you’re entering a stylish cave (so it’s no surprise that “cova” means “cave” in Catalan). Designed by Luigi Tabuena, the gleaming black, chrome and white interiors reminded me uncannily of the W Hotel Downtown lobby in New York City.

Cova’s food is equally inventive. Though you can find customary favorites like calamares, gambas and my ever-reliable patatas bravas, the menu, which features around 20 kinds of tapas, is rife with intriguing choices like the cappuccino de jamon Iberico (Iberian ham and almond soup with veal sweetbread cookies) and espuma de bacalao (salt-cod foam, potato, olives and a garlic confit).

Flavor bombs: The oxtail ravioli de rabo de toro

The gateway dish to all this Spanish goodness has to be the pintxo de queso frito. Cubes of Gruyere cheese are crunch-battered, fried, topped with caramelized onions and served with a honey sauce. For a peasant-at-heart like myself who could subsist on cheese and crusty bread, this is comfort-food supreme.

Another dish to die for is the huevos cabreados, a sunny side-up egg sandwiched in between a mound of crispy shoestring potatoes, with bits of crunchy chorizo scattered everywhere. The play on textures and flavors is deliriously good; if you find yourself at Cova with a hankering for brunch or a hangover cure, this is the dish to order.

Though the concept is predominantly tapas — “Whatever we can make in small portions: two bites at the most,” says Daniel — larger portions, or raciones, are also available, and indeed the norm for dishes like the huevos, in which one egg occupies a full plate. And they can all be accompanied by sangria. Cova offers not just one but four types: along with the Signature Red are lighter, more refreshing versions like the Summer Peachy white sangria, the mint-lychee white and the Millionaire sangria, based on Cava, or Spanish champagne.

Manila already possesses its fair share of Spanish restaurants and tapas joints, so I asked the Hesse brothers why they felt there was still a need for a tapas bar like Cova.

Chef Daniel Hesse

“It was my brother’s idea because he studied in Barcelona for a while and worked at restaurants there,” Daniel explains. “He liked it so much that he wanted to bring it here.”

“In Barcelona there’s lots of places like this, modern tapas bars, because the traditional ones are pretty much dying,” concurs Patrick. “People are inspired by Ferran Adria, so all the food is like this. It’s not even Spanish anymore; they fuse everything. I’ve eaten in some places where it’s tapas but Japanese fusion.”

Adds Daniel, “Actually, if you look at our menu, most of it’s not really Spanish, like the ravioli’s Italian.”

The ravioli he’s referring to is the ravioli de rabo de toro, a crisp, almost dumpling-like skin enclosing a filling of oxtail, foie gras, shiitake mushrooms and oxtail jus. It’s an intense bite — almost a flavor bomb of earthiness — and it’s a big hit with male diners, although daintier eaters might find it almost too intense.

Another dish that carnivores would hew to is the tartar de toro, fresh Angus beef sirloin topped with a raw egg yolk, chives, piparras (peppers), migas (seasoned breadcrumbs) and crispy onion. Mix it all together and you get the protein of champions — something Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky would definitely choose over his raw-egg smoothie.

Stylish cave: The interiors of Cova at 22 Jupiter St., Makati, were designed by Luigi Tabuena.

If you prefer your meat cooked I recommend you try the lengua con setas, which is stewed for four hours to ultra-tenderness, then cubed for easy consumption and lavished with Cova’s special sauce.

Older brother Daniel was the first Hesse in the food biz. (Cova is owned by the Hesse and Guevara families, the latter being related to Patrick’s girlfriend, Tatyana.) Dan studied culinary at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, before apprenticing at the Vegas outpost of the legendary New Orleans restaurant Commander’s Palace, which is “where Emeril Lagasse trained lots of people,” Dan says.

After that he went to another Southern-style restaurant, House of Blues, before trying his hand at Vegas hotels and restaurants like the Hyatt Regency and Japengo. “The last thing I did there was worked at Green Valley Ranch and Hank’s Steakhouse. You can see it on the Food Network.”

“He makes a really good steak,” confirms Dan’s girlfriend Michelline Syjuco, the jewelry artist and sculptor from the super-artistic, über-talented Syjuco clan. Michelline typically works on her jewelry at the restaurant, where it’s quiet in the daytime. “Usually he’ll pick me up and head here. While he’s prepping I do my designs,” she laughs.

Gateway to Spanish goodness: The pintxo de queso frito, fried Gruyere cheese with caramelized onions and honey

Patrick, on the other hand, studied at Enderun and interned for four-and-a-half months at the Ritz-Carlton’s Hotel Arts Barcelona, working with three-Michelin-star chef Sergi Arola at the latter’s eponymous restaurant. “A lot of my dishes, in terms of plating and texture, are influenced by a lot of dishes I used to make in Arola,” Patrick says.

Though I was incredibly full from the succession of small plates — average price for a tapa is a very reasonable P150 — I somehow managed to polish off a goblet of jamon y melon, Pinkerton’s candied maple-bacon ice cream strewed with crispy melon. But that’s just a testament to how good it is.

I’ll really have to bring my flamenco mates to Cova so we can relive our great times in Spain.

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Sweet and savory: Pinkerton’s candied maple-bacon ice cream

Cova Tapas Y Sangria is located at 22 Jupiter Street, Bel-Air Village, Makati. Open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. from Mondays to Saturdays, call 478-9700 for information and reservations.