Let me tell you about the breads and the bees at Spectrum

There are bees in Spectrum.

An entire colony of them … those black-and-yellow buzzers live inside the restaurant in the Raffles & Fairmont Hotel Makati. No, no, this is not a scene from a local reboot of Invasion of the Killer Bees. The bees are part of Spectrum’s honey station; they are in a glass display case with a tap, producing fresh honey so diners can pour some on their desserts. Sweet brilliance, I tell you. A metaphor, perhaps, for Spectrum’s buffet strategy.

“Everything is made freshly in the kitchen,” chef de cuisine Gregory Georges informs us. It is lunchtime in Makati and guests are filing into the restaurant with its a spectrum of gustatory delights. Unlike other buffet spreads that put everything on view for two to three hours (slabs upon slabs of meat everywhere as if in preparation for the arrival of a horde of Vikings or Napoleon’s army fresh off the boat from Waterloo), Spectrum chooses quality over quantity. It is finesse over brute force — like Kareem Abdul Jabbar over Shaquille O’Neal, Beethoven rather than Black Flag.

“We prefer elegance,” says chef GG. While other restaurants accommodate 300 to 400 diners, Spectrum can serve up to 180. Just enough quantity of food is put on display, but dishes are replenished right away.

The chef and I take a walk past the stations. The Frenchman has worked everywhere from Los Angeles to Australia to Spain to Dubai. At 14, he started his culinary love affair. At 18, he left France to work. He’s been a traveler ever since, but he’s quite excited about his current post. “The pizza here is made specially for every single guest,” he says. Choose your own adventure; pick your own toppings. That’s one of the things Spectrum takes pride in: personalized pizza, personalized service.

Raffles & Fairmont Makati director of F&B Joern Schwaiger with director of communications Monique Toda (right) and marketing communications manager Loni Balagtas at Spectrum

“Even the seafood. You can ask the chef to cook it for you with garlic, butter. Nothing is pre-made; everything is prepared here, right in front of you. Nobody supplies for me. So I can assure you of the quality of the ingredients and how they are prepared.”

Everyone’s welcome here, assures the chef. “(With our price points) this place is accessible to all kinds of people. They should come here and have a great meal.”

Chef GG himself goes for the sushi with the salmon skin/belly or (I kid you not) suckling pig or Peking duck. Way too cool. Two to three countries on one’s tongue.

Everything has a twist, assures Monique Toda, who is the director of communications. “We have local flavors (at Spectrum) and dishes, but there’s something different about them. We have taho — but it’s coffee taho. Look at our cakes. We even have chocolate calamansi.”

For Spectrum’s halo-halo, instead of having regular ice cream, it boasts granita — Italian-flavored ice with a crystalline texture that makes a world of difference. “You have a choice of pandan, corn or mango. Highly recommended,” Toda points out. Guests can also sample the macarons in queso de bola, ube, muscovado or mango. “We mix local flavors in our dishes. And it’s also in our restaurant décor. Proudly Pinoy.”

Cassava cake, check. Kutsinta, check. There is even a dedicated station for mangoes, which guests can enjoy in different ways. Here… mango sago, check.

I am told that the restaurant credo is “Simply Life”: fresh, ideally organic ingredients are cooked in a simple, straightforward manner to retain the original purity and flavor of the ingredients — and doing so in a high-quality manner. Take the crepes, for example. Or the crunchy, slightly spicy salmon-skin Japanese roll — I’ve had four of those bad boys and looking forward to my fifth roll. Or the eggplant jamming harmoniously with the piece of well-done roast beef on my lunch plate, like the bass in a fugue. Or the soup of broccoli (the Black Mamba’s favorite vegetable, says a shoe ad). Or the station of different breads — rolls or loaves, wheat and rye — to go with one’s daily dose of the gospels.

At the table is director of food and beverage Joern Schwaiger. The man was born and raised in Germany but has spent a lot of times in the States. He’s been with Fairmont for nearly 13 years already — from Boston to Dubai to New York to Beijing. Here is now for Joern Schwaiger.

“What makes us different from the other hotels is that we’re a little more boutique than them,” he explains. “We’re offering that boutique luxury experience. We have a more intimate setting.”

Spectrum tells the tale, he points out. “We only have 180 seats, so it’s easy for us to recognize our regulars. And we give warm, personalized and engaging service. One of our philosophies is that in any market we go to, we go authentically local. That’s one of our brand promises.”

The “authentic Filipino feel” just have to be touches of it, Schwaiger qualifies; it doesn’t necessarily have to be overwhelmingly in-your-face.

The thrust is to work as much as possible with local ingredients, to really take the time not just to go to main suppliers but more crucially to find little, hidden gems. He shares, “There are amazing local products out there. Look at our beverages. Or take the bees, for example. We came up with the idea of doing something with this local beekeeper with his delicious honey, support him and at the same time support the local economy.”

The man goes for salad, sushi and — get a load of this — sinigang.

“I love our sinigang,” he admits. “I just love the complexity of the soup. I love the tamarind, which in our European cuisine we don’t use a lot, but it gives that tangy, different flavor. It’s the tamarind that does it for me. I also go for adobo. The chef is very secretive about his own take on adobo. He’s not sharing any of his secrets (laughs).”

“Simply Life,” according to Schwaiger, is an entire concept altogether — not just about the ingredients but also the presentation.

“It’s almost how you would prepare food at home,” he explains. Little pots and pans are used in serving certain dishes. Pastries come straight from the oven on a baking tray. “We’re using that minimalist concept  — comfort food like you would have at home.”    

Even water has a flavor, a new one every day. Comes in lemon, strawberry, lime and cucumber — very refreshing over lunch on a warm day.

Schwaiger concludes, “I’m a strong believer in value-addition, especially in the luxury hotel industry. At Raffles and Fairmont, your guests have expectations. The keys are in the little details, adding value to those things that others have taken for granted.”

I go for dessert. I see a pudding pot and I’m reminded of how my mom Elena would get pieces of bread of the day, mix them up with condensed milk and other improv wonders, and come up with a spectacular dessert as the climax to our austere meal. I’m like Anton Ego flashbacking to his childhood scene in Ratatouille.

Memories of home, flavored water, personalized pizzas, bees on display… just another lunch hour at Spectrum. Just the way things are supposed to bee.

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Lunch at Spectrum is at P1,596 net for lunch and P1,842 net for dinner, inclusive of coffee and tea. The Raffles & Fairmont Hotel is at 1 Raffles Drive, Makati Ave., Makati City. For information, visit www.raffles.com or www.fairmont.com. For dining reservations, call 555-9840 or e-mail dining.makati@fairmont.com. Raffles & Fairmont — flying the flag of two international luxury hotel brands — had its soft opening last Dec. 3, 2012. The grand opening is on Feb. 7.