MARGARITA FORES

With MARIO BATALI
(photo from Margarita Fores)

Margarita Fores is just like her cooking. There are so many layers and elements to her and she is so celebrated that writing about her becomes a challenge. First, because of all the details, and secondly because her story has been written in almost all the glossies it's a challenge to find a fresh approach.

Here's a digested version. She claims to not be a chef but a cook. In fact, she is - hold your breath - an ACCOUNTANT! From Assumption College. I was like "What? She is so creative it's the last thing I would imagine her to be, haha. "I didn't know what to take up and my grandfather said you can't go wrong with accounting." She has the license and all.

Then she went on a trip to Italy to learn to cook. Her love for cooking started in New York, where she lived for over ten years, meeting New York's A list. I read in some article that her mom even posed for Salvador Dali - surreal! She fell in love with all things Italian. A friend living in Italy at the time heard of a cook who was giving lessons out of her home- Ms. Masha Inocenti in Florence. Ms. Fores went and discovered that she really loved it. Took lessons from two other cooks - Ada Parasiliti in Milan and Jo Bettoja in Rome.

Came home, started Area Cafe in Glorietta with a few friends. Had a falling out, opened her own restaurant Cibo. "I was doing all the work anyway," she explained when I asked about it.

Now there are TEN Cibos. "We feel now that there should be a Cibo in every big mall." It's become such a part of our lives - why not?

I remember the first time I interviewed her. She was on a campaign to bring more Filipino seafoods into the fine dining market so she had a Diwal Festival in Pepato. "Instead of sea bass, why not apahap, which we call Philippine sea bass?" And she offered a bouillabaisse of apahap and other Philippine seafood. I had always had apahap on Nana Meng's table but it was my first time to try it on the fine dining level.

We talked about food and she sensed my love for fowl. In an instant on my plate was a goose liver creme brulee. Two years and many restaurants later, I still haven't found anything in the metro that comes close.

We talked about chocolate and I shared that I had tried Aztec hot chocolate in Jacques Torres little shop in Brooklyn. She got all excited and made me try her version of spicy and sweet - Chili Ice Cream! She watched me animatedly as I took my first bite. "Di ba, it's sweet then you only taste the chili later?"

That she is a food enthusiast and not just a food lover is bold, underline, italicized. And I just find it amazing that after twenty years in the business - she is celebrating her twentieth year in the business this year, her debut for a food festival of a hotel first in April then in November 20 years ago - she remains as enthusiastic about food as I imagine she was twenty years ago.

The truth is, it's hard to keep up with her! She is so knowledgeable on so many things - food, travel, design - that for writers with less exposure it is easy to get lost. I've had my fair share of travels to the Americas, Europe and Asia but Gaita Fores can tell you the littlest details about each city.

I would say that if there was any authority on lifestyle today, it would have to be her.

Pepato remains, to my mind, one of the top five culinary destinations in the country today. The restaurant is so well thought out. The interiors, the pepper mill collection on the walls, the spiral staircase, the door - and I haven't even gotten to the menu. I find it sad that a majority of the market would rather spend P1800 on steak than on Gaita Fores' creations. Because to get a bite of her concepts is always an experience.

Even in a restaurant as commercial as Cibo. In a mall. Cibo is admittedly my go-to restaurant at the Rockwell mall (Powerplant). But my staple order is the Telefono. Only recently did I examine other items on the menu again, which I had taken for granted because Cibo has just become such a part of our middle class lives - and I was pleased to learn that they have sandwiches with Gruyere cheese! It made my day.

I like that Fores is constantly trying to educate the Filipino palate. "I used to be afraid of sharing recipes - you know how it is here, people copy concepts all the time. But then I realized with food, even if you give exactly the same recipe, if you don't know the correct process, the end result won't be the same. Plus, I've also learned that to develop that relationship with your customers, it's better to share than to be selfish about what you know." She won't hesitate to share a recipe. And even brings her staff to Italy not only to train but to gain a real appreciation of Italian food.

And she's constantly making people try new things. At a recent interview in Cafe Bola, on the second floor of Greenbelt 3, she had the waiter get her Cerveza Negra Ice Cream from Pepato, which is on the ground level of Greenbelt 2, for me to try! "You taste the beer after, right?" Her eyes are as excited as when she made me try chili ice cream two years ago.

She also keeps pushing herself. At a catering job for a banker, she had to create a menu with five cuisines to represent the five countries where that banker had been - the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil. Here's what she came up with -

Lamb Curry and Papadums (India)
Lechon and Lumpiang Ubod (Philippines)
Chicken Sate and Nasi Goreng (Indonesia)
Churrascos and Feixoada (Brazil)
River Prawn Rendang and Rojak (Malaysia)

Can you imagine what a headache that must have been, making these five cuisines match? She says she had to do a lot of research.

With all that enthusiasm, you just have to root for her. She is really an institution in the Philippine culinary scene now. And I'm just happy I'm part of that generation that experienced her art!

PEPATO. Greenbelt 2 Ayala Center. 757 2636.

MARIO BATALI IS ONE OF FORES' BIGGEST FANS!

GAITA FORES' FIVE FAVORITE RESTAURANTS IN THE WORLD:

1. Vecchia Roma, Piazza Campitelli, Rome
2. Lupa, Mario Batali, New York
3. Martin Berasategui, San Sebastian
4. Chez L'Amis Louis, Paris
5. Monferrato, Torino