I have been deceived, I realize, as I take a deep breath trying to keep up with chef Tonyboy Escalante. De-spite the elegant country estate-feel of Antonio’s Fine Dining, my recollection of the gastronomic getaway imploring quietude and my palate’s reverence, it seems the chef refuses to let our lunch turn into a formal sort of gathering: one of those food-intellectualizing affairs where chews, like thoughts, are calculated.
As he has a pristinely uniformed waiter pour me another vodka on the rocks, it’s as if the chef wants this little get-together to loosen up a bit; become a rollicking party, even. At noon. Right before the appetizers are served.
“Have you ever had a breakfast party?” he asks no one in particular, not waiting for an answer. “When I had one, everyone got drunk. I love getting buzzed in the afternoon.”
Laid out at table’s center, the platters of oysters — truffle-baked or topped with a gratin of creamed Parmesan — have stimulated our table’s spirit of festivity. Or chef Tonyboy’s, at least, the mirth in his voice rarely dissipating. After he grabs the remaining two oysters and drops them onto my plate, he signals for the waiter once more and, caught in a Dionysian flurry, asks him to bring out a Riesling for his guests.
A Many-Coursed Life (AND LUNCH)
Dining with chef Tonyboy, much more sitting beside the man, is like lounging in the eye of a storm. You can only watch in bewilderment as sentiments, thoughts and musings whirl about. One moment, he’ll be telling you about a vegetarian Fijian holy man he’d gotten to take a bite of salami; the next, he’s recounting his adolescent years of drinking Tanduay rum with his aunts, this premature “learning to drink” customary for a young man growing up in Bacolod.
You are merely a passenger aboard a vessel traversing chef Tonyboy’s stream of consciousness, rapid and unrelenting as it is. This is how it has always been with Antonio’s: he envisions, he creates, and you, dear diner and spectator, are just an afterthought.
It’s certainly what has led him to this point, distant as it is from the madding crowd of Manila restaurants thriving on hype and mimicry. The reason for his restaurant’s remoteness, peeking over a generous stretch of Tagaytay greenery, was born from the desire to spare his two kids from the wearying ills of urban life. This was also how he’d grown up in his province, sustained by fresh air and fortified by trees.
And then there’s that renegade raison d’être of his that influenced his choice of location, like it did when he decided upon another direction in dealing with matters of the mouth.
“You should have seen my dad — he wanted to die. ‘Cause I quit studying dentistry and then went to PAL to prove na I could do something after leaving school. When my father found out I was gonna be a steward, he called me a waiter for two years,” he laughs, recalling his father’s reaction to his unexpected career move and the bird’s-eye view he eventually had on what he really wanted to do. It’s what would later bring him to Adelaide, studying culinary arts in Australia as his wife Agnes stuck to the soil of their Tagaytay property, letting their herb garden grow in anticipation of his return.
“Before, you’d have to go to an office. Pero ngayon, I think this generation has more choices. That’s why when my son told me, ‘I wanna be a mechanic,’ I said, ‘Go ahead.’ Just be the best mechanic, ‘no? I’m not saying I’m the best, I’m just a lucky bastard.”
All About The Cui-Scenery
This perspective on pure pursuits speaks volumes about what ends up on Tonyboy’s menu. It explains why you have come this far to dine. Why many, in fact, since the opening of Antonio’s in 2002, have made the pilgrimage to the restaurant and tasted the difference — or indifference, rather — of food made simply from unswayable passion. With such boldness comes ever-evolving fare; the reason you won’t find exactly the same offerings from your last sumptuous sit-down here. And what you’ll discover, from the foie gras-enhanced appetizers emblematic of his joie de vivre, to the well-recommended Kurobuta pork confit signifying his being a “pork lover,” is that everything is what the chef himself craves.
Like the steak tartare he just now requests from a waiter — one of Tonyboy’s favorites, I would later find out. The intricacy-ridden fervor with which he works is evident in the dish. The mound of minced raw US beef tenderloin and capers is further lent zippiness from an overlay of radish shavings, then provided a cushion of crunch and warmth when you slather it upon the freshly baked French bread that accompanies it.
Just as the Gunderloch Jean Baptiste ’05 Riesling arrives, a waiter tips a carafe of peppermint tea-infused pomelo-grape juice over ice cubes made from the same blend, the sight of such a splendid immersion urging nothing but revelry. The feeling persists as my tongue slackens to a bite of the pan-seared foie gras over Quattro formagi tart, a couple of Granny Smith apple slices resting in-between as a tangy waker-upper from such indulgence. And to stabilize you for another rich foie mouthful is the dish’s siding of rocket salad with apple mustard vinaigrette. Despite the pliancy of the beef fillet that follows, rendered delightfully tender by its grilling à la plancha, I know that thoughts of the goose liver will marinate in my mind until my next visit. Everyone’s got favorites at Antonio’s: the house specialty of herb-fennel-and-potato-stuffed boneless suckling pig for some, the cardamom-rubbed centerpiece rib-eye (700 grams) for others. And while I may be a fool for foie, what’s clear about every dish on the menu is that there is no food-for-food’s-sake reason for its inclusion, buttressed as each is by the same inventiveness and quality that Tonyboy approaches his cooking and Agnes manages their organic fowl and produce farms with.
Everything else — the revivified Breakfast at Antonio’s opening right below the Fine Dining area in July, the five-course tasting menu Tonyboy wishes to offer at a new “boutique resort” in Calatagan, and renovations that span winsome baroque tiling, balustrades, and vista-framing French windows — is just, well, gravy.
Even the restaurant’s just-launched website, a surefire visual appetizer and definitive guide for all the couples planning their courtyard weddings and the many foreigners who make their way to this destination eat, was an attempt at finally connecting with the world, unruffled as Tonyboy is about all that. “It was a way to go with the times after so many years. After my second year going to Singapore, wala pa akong website, so nahiya na ako,” he says of his restaurant being the only one among the Miele Guide’s “Asia’s Top 20 Restaurants” that had no online counterpart, even after placing for two consecutive years.
Of course, how can you blame a guy whose passions are irrepressible? And rightfully so considering what emerges from them: this afternoon’s extra-virgin coconut ice cream, for instance. Or his homemade limoncello, the refreshingly potent mix of which he does not hesitate to share with the table.
Another finger of Grey Goose is ordered into my glass — my seventh, probably — and once more, chef Tonyboy brings up his penchant for parties. He’d like to throw a “leg of lamb party” one of these days, he says, brown eyes flickering with resolve.
The cool Tagaytay breeze lets me gain some composure, yet the chef roils on, sharing his excitement in a family trip to Alaska in a couple of days, declaring how travel is crucial for young chefs, and then praising the ingenuity of Filipino chefs for making do with the local lack in ingredients. “Yung asparagus natin, ang liliit. Seldom you get the big ones like in other countries,” he says, raising a middle finger to demonstrate size, then giggling after realizing its unintended offense. The entire table breaks into laughter, exhilarated not just by the food but the chef himself.
Soon, the sun’s apparent descent will declare the party over. As we pass through the arched exit, the solemnity of the drive home sets in, prompting my bewilderment in what just took place. As with its chef, however, the Antonio’s experience refuses to be pinned down. I lean back instead, relishing what remains of an afternoon buzz.
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Antonio’s and Breakfast at Antonio’s are located at Purok 138, Barangay Neogan, Tagaytay City.