MANILA, Philippines - If there were ever a good time as any to thank the Lord for the food, it would be at 2nd’s. And not just to say grace for the gloriously greasy grub that’ll save my hungover soul but because a Bible study’s the reason this restaurant exists.
When hallowed hangout Mag:Net at Bonifacio High Street ascended into the heaven of profit-thirsty watering holes, 10 regulars at Church Simplified (CS), where the Word was made fresh for members of Generation A.D.D. through weekly get-down-to-the-gospel bible studies, were like apostles abandoned but called to carry on and serve. And serve they would when Church Simplified-goer and young chef Indy Villalon proposed they keep their holy ground by leasing Mag:Net’s space and turning it into a restaurant.
As with the engagingly no-bull way the group went about worshiping the Lord, Indy and the C.S. members he would partner with decided on comfort staples that prioritized straight-up taste but not without a tasteful twist. “This is the comfort food we grew up with and remember. The whole idea was to sort of revisit that food, present it intelligently,” says 2nd’s co-owner BJ Albert of ever-reliable eats like the restaurant’s mac ‘n’ cheese. Once you break through the mac’s potato chip crust, the dish’s refined reincarnation comes by way of its being baked with truffle oil and a fromage à trois of emmenthal, blue cheese, and sharp cheddar.
Worth The Weight
This is homestyle cuisine delivered from its sinfulness through a whole lot of sophistication. Even as an order of bacon chicharon sounds like an arterial atrocity, whatever fry job you’d imagined a nine-year-old could think up is betrayed by bark-like ribbons of lean bacon with so much bite in them, you don’t even need the dish’s saucy supplement: spiced vinegar bringing the tart and a wholegrain mustard-muscovado dip, the tangy.
“I never have a bad day here. I just eat something and I’m gonna feel good,” says Nadine Howell, the restaurant’s marketing manager and one of its prime centerpieces, given her being as visually appetizing as the food. Having previously done marketing for a loft-like bar just a few minutes’ drive from 2nd’s may have helped Howell feel even more at home with the food, especially since it was borne from liquor-accompanied get-togethers among the ten partner-cum-apostles. If they weren’t praising the Lord at CS, they were rapturizing on favorite recipes to Chef Indy, who laid the restaurant’s gourmet groundwork right before he’d decided to continue his culinary education at the Alain Ducasse Training Center in Paris. Taking up where he left off, however, was Mikko Reyes, who could put the three years he’d spent as a chef at the Asian Development Bank’s fine dining restaurant to good use, turning the cravings of his fellow 20-somethings into classed-up fare.
In the company of young men, adding buffalo wings to the menu was a no-brainer, of course. As nostalgia can give you the munchies, the 2nd’s crew agreed on wings shaped like the chicken lollipops of birthday parties’ past, but given a little dinner party distinction when a mere nibble of that plump bulb of tender white meat lets it come cleanly off the bone. The debate of classic crispiness and caramelized chewiness is settled when you’ve got cornflake-encrusted skin, the buoyancy amplifying the pops’ even-tempered coating of spice.
Alongside the bracing party show is a morning-after meal like the Good Morning Spaghetti, what co-owner Luigi Tabuena describes as “the perfect hangover food.” This is a carbonara that isn’t afraid to do the walk of shame—a sunny side-up baked within a spaghetti swirl of cream, onions, and bacon chunks, so that the yolk bleeds through the noodles when you begin to toss it. Through richness upon richness, a forkful can tug upon taste buds you didn’t know had been asleep. With a lack of inhibition in crafting their dishes, 2nd’s can sometimes access flavorful extremities as in its Sherry Lewis Cheesesteak, where caramelized onions, melted emmental and raclette, and a side of mint jelly come into playful accord with strips of tenderized lamb; stacked headiness that’s chastened by a scattering of pine nuts and radish sprouts.
The Fine Diner
2nds’ “re-visitation” of go-to feel-good eats is marked by a reverence disguised as indulgence. Why not proclaim a dish’s timelessness by celebrating it with top-of-the-line ingredients, as is can be relished in the Sea Bass Sinigang or a salpicao with U.S. angus beef and foie gras — all worthy of your parting with a blue bill for an order of starter and entrée. The reverence also extends to the atmosphere at 2nd’s, where brown leather banquettes and heavyset steakhouse chairs compliment the distinguished artifacts on the shelves, from framed monochrome gangster movie stills to a hardbound copy of Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife. “I won’t say we’re old souls but that’s what a lot of people think when they see this place,” says BJ over the crooner-era music in the background, asserting an aesthetic he describes as “A gentleman’s diner with a study theme.”
The empty bottles of liquor hanging over the bar counter are also indicative of this reverence; of all the times the apostles gathered ‘round one of the tables here in appreciation of a bottle of single-malt scotch, a formidable variety of which 2nd’s has in stock. Glasses were raised, you just know—amid the partners’ family photos on the walls, a door made from Mag:Net’s wood-plank floor that stands as a tribute, and to the second life of their second home.
And let’s to the Lord, of course; To He who makes all things — a failed bar, ol’ faithful recipes — new again.
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2nd’s is located at Quadrant 3, Bonifacio High Street, 5th Avenue, Fort Bonifacio Global City.