The fast and the Epicurious

MANILA, Philippines - It was in that small but stately brownstone building just along Katipunan Avenue when, dressed in my Catholic schoolboy white polo and khaki shorts, I had my first brush with the world of gourmet. Cravings was quick to turn my regular ABCs into Artisanal bread, Brewed coffee, and Caesar salad during slow afternoons.

Now, 20 years later, while it didn’t do much for my own personal cooking technique, as attested to by my own culinary taste, the Cravings Group is doing it again, this time in swank style, when they recently opened Epicurious at the Shangri-La Mall East Wing.

It was like the pearly gates of culinary heaven opening up — where slivers of sausages, cheeses, truffle shavings, and sourdough breads offer their most precious morsels for the hungry.

“It was dream come true for me,” reveals the Cravings Group and Center for Culinary Arts president Badjie Trinidad, who for over 25 years has been responsible for expanding the country’s culinary industry by shaping the careers of many superstar chefs, one toque at a time.

“Whenever I travel, even before I go to a museum, I go to the market or the food hall, and I always say that it would be nice to have something like that in the Philippines, somewhere you can eat whatever you buy,” Trinidad adds. The result is a malled-up version of your neighborhood New York deli or San Francisco farmer’s market, complete with freshly baked bread, locally sourced organic produce, and a wide variety of meats and complements for the picking.

“I have to admit, it was a bit overwhelming because unlike a restaurant where you can just craft a menu and choose a chef, here there are a lot of things to consider, like coordinating with suppliers. But I enjoy doing that. In fact, I spend most of my weekends here now,” Trinidad recounts.

The corners of the store feature bottles and boxes of fine foodstuffs created from newfangled recipes by CCA alumni chefs, paired with the country’s freshest farm-grown ingredients.  

“It’s a one-stop lifestyle hub where you can get everything you need as far as shopping for really hard-to-find, limited, or artisanal dining products is concerned,” marketing director Issa Rodriguez explains. “You can dine in a casual, self-service, do-it-yourself kind of setting, and be able to choose what you like and have a stable of chefs at your disposal to prepare a meal for you, based on your caprices and whims.” The concept is far from simple, especially when saffron-infused olive oils and truffle-butter popcorn are thrown into the mix. But Epicurious makes the experience of sampling gourmet tastes and textures fun and enjoyable.

“The management gave us the free will to let us do the dishes we want for the day,” says consulting delicatessen chef Tristan Encarnacion. “This way, we get to bring out our creativity as chefs while keeping our diners interested. Anything we can think of we serve for the day, so we can have fun with the ingredients we have in-store, while encouraging our diners to try something new.”

The celebrity chef builds his epicurean repertoire from a huge assortment of marinated meats, cold cuts, cheeses, and sides that he turns into quick sandwiches, or what they call, “the fast and the Epicurious,” to crisp salads eaten straight from charmingly repurposed mason jars.

“The dining experience here is enjoyable because you entrust us with your food based on all the ingredients we have here,” Encarnacion adds. “And this amount of trust encourages us to step up our game and come up with the best dish we can think of. So everyone comes out here with a certain smile of satisfaction.”

Senior consulting chef Mira Cruz, who mans the main Epicurious kitchen and assembly line, fosters a different kind of rapport — one that guarantees that the diners get only the best on their plates. “Our relationship with our suppliers is very important,” she says. “We have local, organic suppliers, as well as global product suppliers who we value very much by incorporating their stuff in every dish that we do. I also make it a point to visit local farms and markets to get in touch with our suppliers to ensure that we get the freshest and finest from them.”

From picking to packaging, Cruz ensures that she puts her personal touch on her epicurean contributions. “I create gourmet hampers, where I select all the good things that come in each one, based on personality or request, and I personally write special recipes or notes on how to prepare them. This interaction is what makes our work here special. We make sure that our service here is personalized, down to even the packaging, to make the experience more special for our guests, and to make work more interesting for us. It’s tiring but it’s fulfilling!”

So, on a busy lunch hour, the team of Cruz, Encarnacion, consulting pastry chef Christine Paredes, and master brewer Raul Peralta created a one-off full-course banquet that left no gastronome unfulfilled: freshly baked white or dark bread paired with three artisanal spreads —sublimely sweet yogurt butter, exotic hummus, or the savory smoked salmon mousse; a well-curated spread of cold cuts; a generous dollop of truffle honey and cheeses; antipasti of chorizo patatas bravas with that perfect hit of habanero chili oil; and nut-encrusted Steggels chicken in saffron-garlic aioli.

The mains came in a frenzy of different flavors, from the Black Truffle Pasta with Sabatino Tartufo shaved tableside, to the Epicurious signature Surf & Turf of well-grilled salmon and pork steak on a bed of crisp noodles. But because this is a place where even the most gluttonous gourmand can leave all dining inhibitions at the door, we broke all our New Year’s resolutions for the assorted chocolate truffle selections and specially brewed organic mountain coffee.      

Since its founders are in the business of further educating the public, the Epicurious team makes sure that its diners take some culinary pointers home with them, along with their full stomachs and deli bags. “It has a very casual environment, so it is inviting for anyone who wants to study cooking but not in a formal setting,” says founder Badjie Trinidad. “It’s more lifestyle-based, where people can learn about different ingredients and get tips from our own chefs.”

With cooking classes and demos peppered throughout the afternoon, everyone, from the most prolific foodie to the newbie gourmand, can further their culinary horizons. The shopping and dining establishment has also released an Epicurious app for Android, so you can further indulge your Epi-curiosity.

For newbies, building a kitchen stash can prove tricky, so we asked the Epicurious peeps to choose the five items that should be on everyone’s deli list:  “I’d probably start with a good olive oil, and make sure that I have it in my pantry,” muses Trinidad. “Then whole-wheat pasta, because you can practically add anything to that and it is easy to do. Next is balsamic vinegar and I’d have a good cut of steak in my freezer, so anytime I have guests or a family to feed, I’m ready. And salad greens! For me these are the staples.”

Chef Encarnacion, on the other hand, offers a different take: “Start off with a protein, choose from our marinated meats or cold cuts. Then a starch, be it bread or pasta, then dairy — we have a fine selection of cheeses. Fresh fruits or produce, then top it off with something to drink, so it is a complete meal. Add to that a happy place you can enjoy it in.”

* * *

Epicurious is located on the Lower Ground Level of the Shangri-La Mall East Wing.