A year after Maurizio, a charming Italian ristorante in Salcedo Village, opened it doors to the public, its chef and owner Maurizio Gibillini is beefing up. Literally.
No, he’s not fortifying his ristorante against the competition, he’s simply beefing up his mouth-watering menu with even more mouth-watering entrees.
“You see,” points out Maurizio, the Tagalog-speaking chef from Milan after whom the restaurant was named, “a good Italian restaurant is not only about pizza.”
His business partner Mike Ozaeta agrees. “Maurizio is known for pasta, but he’s also very good with steak. We don’t have an extensive steak menu here, but we have a good one.”
Mike says that in the Philippines, the AB crowd equates a good dinner with a steak dinner. “When people want to celebrate, the prospect of good steak excites them. Steak really appeals to the Manila crowd when they want to celebrate. On a weekend and they decide to go out, they will have steak,” observes Mike.
Mike has a secret source for Wagyu beef for Maurizio’ steaks, but Wagyu is so in-demand diners are requested to call first if they want Wagyu. US Angus Beef, however, is available every day. (Among Maurizio’s steak aficionados are Senators Ping Lacson and Alan Peter Cayetano.)
On the day I joined Maurizio and Mike for lunch, they let me sample their Tagliatata alla Fiorentina and the Contro Filetto al Pepe Verde. The former was a steak dish of grilled sliced Angus beef seared in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. The second steak dish was cooked with green peppercorn, a bit of cream and brandy.
In both steak dishes, the beef was grilled to medium-rare perfection, which is how Maurizio recommends it. The steak was virtually melt-in-your-mouth, and it was simply heavenly to dip it in the sauce — olive oil in the former and peppercorn cream in the latter. There was no ghost of a presence of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, or A-I. No French Fries, just a dainty sprig of rosemary on the side.
The reason perhaps why the steak was not served to me in a big slab (Wagyu is usually served in an 800-gram slice) is because Maurizio made me sample as well his latest creation — Ai Pizze del Re (Pizza of the Kings).
Unlike the Tagliatata alla Fiorentina and the Contro Filetto al Pepe Verde, which are traditional steak recipes Maurizio learned from his mamma, the pizza was a serendipitous concoction.
“There was lots of extra buffalo mozzarella in the refrigerator,” recalls Maurizio, “Sayang!”
So he decided to layer it with tomato sauce, fresh porcini mushrooms and olive oil.
“I made it for myself at first,” says Maurizio, “and then let some clients try it. Then one day, they no longer ordered the usual pizza but the new one. So I decided to add it to the menu.”
Sometimes Maurizio swaps buffalo mozzarella with stiacchino cheese.
A good pizza crust, says Maurizio, “is thin, crispy and oily.”
To him, the crust should be very basic — just flour, water, olive oil and salt. He shudders at the thought of adding beer to the mixture, the way some do.
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I tried to pry from Maurizio the recipe of his steak dishes. He will tell you the ingredients, but won’t divulge the proportions. Why?
Simply because he doesn’t have them!
“I am a chef, not a pharmacist. You can’t have the mentality of a pharmacist in an Italian restaurant,” says the brutally frank Milanese. “I don’t measure the ingredients, only the pasta.” To him, everything is to be seasoned to taste (“Tantiya-tantiya” are his exact words), and to him, there lies the measure of a good chef. He knows instinctively how to flavor the dish, the way a painter harmonizes his colors on canvass without a guidebook.
There is perhaps only one dish in his arsenal that isn’t traditionally Italian, and that’s his Spaghetti Tavolara, which is spaghetti with tomato sauce, crab fat, shrimps and olive oil.
A purist when it comes to Italian cooking, Maurizio decrees, “I don’t believe in fusion.”
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Maurizio’s partners in this venture (he has another restaurant at The Podium called Pagliacci) are brothers Ivan and Emerson Yao and Mike Ozaeta.
Because of their luxury watch business, the Yaos travel to Europe a lot, and make frequent stops in Italy. Back home, they feel it is Maurizio’s cooking that comes closest to authentic Italian cooking. Emerson says that what he likes about Maurizio is that the chef talks to customers and even gives them cooking and dining tips.
Mike, for his part, feels that customers could also taste the difference if the Italian restaurant not only has an Italian chef, but also “is owned by an Italian.” Maurizio is both chef and owner, and so he rightfully says that when you enter his kitchen, “You are entering Italian territory.”
Maurizio trains Filipino cooks, and shares his recipes. Isn’t he afraid of sharing his secrets and that some might end up with the competition?
“You can share recipes,” contends Maurizio, “but you cannot borrow this (points to his tongue).”
I asked Maurizio how the past year was like, and what new things he has learned.
In typical Maurizio fashion, he tells me frankly, “I didn’t learn much. It’s more my clients learning from me!”
Maurizio doesn’t measure ingredients, but he measures up. That is perhaps why one leaves his restaurant with the kind of satisfaction that is equally hard to measure.
(For inquiries and reservations, please call tel. no. 750-7817)
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com)