Collaborating with Pinky Tobiano’s Table Love by Pinky, Chele Gonzalez launches new degustación menu for the holidays
Gallery by Chele is in the mood for loving. After all, the Christmas spirit, especially in the Philippines, has long been in the air.
To launch its tasting menu for the holidays, the restaurant named after Spanish chef Chele Gonzalez collaborated with Table Love by Pinky, a passion project of chemist and entrepreneur Pinky Tobiano, on a table setup against which to present the latest of its labors of love, the new thoughtfully presented embodiments to what it calls “essentialist cuisine.”
To Pinky, tablescaping is a language of love. “My tablescapes allow me to express my love, my gratitude, and how I appreciate the people closest to me. Each detail is carefully curated from the plates, to the flowers, to the theme, and to the personality of my guests,” says she, whose eloquence in this language has been harnessed since her days speaking it loudly and clearly in her lifestyle program on TFC.
Set off against a lush miniature forest of fresh pines harvested from Baguio, adorned with red and gold holiday touches and with bespoke birds handmade by designer Neric Beltran, replete sometimes with Pinky’s own collection of royal blue Versace plates, the yields of the latest cross-cultural culinary exploration embarked on by Chele and his kitchen partner, executive sous chef and Gallery by Chele co-owner Carlos Villaflor, were served course after course in a manner echoing the surprises the partners found mixing ingredients, techniques, cultures, and traditions mostly from the Philippines but also from neighboring countries in Asia as well as across the oceans to match palates both local and foreign, modern yet traditional.
Among the first to be served in the degustación menu was crispy hash brown topped with beef tartare, fresh uni, and pickled pepino dulce on a bed of pansit pansitan leaves.
What followed was insulin tacos made of seasonal ingredients like pickled dragon fruit, Kurobuta pork, and cilantro, all wrapped in the leaves of the insulin plant garden-grown at Gallery by Chele. Served next to it was a perfect blend of East and West, the Indonesian laksa meeting the Mexican tamales in corn tamales wrapped in cornhusk, within which oozed a corn puree infused with shrimp heads and fried alamang topping with micro cilantro garnishes.
A nostalgic presence on the holiday table was the Mushroom Burger, inspired by the cult-ish mushroom burger in Tagaytay back in the 1980s, except that in this contemporary take, meringue was used as bun and mushroom mousse served as the patty. It was a pop-in-the-mouth experience, instant relish, a treat to both the taste buds and the memory.
Bicol Chawanmushi was how Bicol Express was interpreted for this tasting menu, with the Bicolano specialty dish as the base flavor, upon which was built the savor of the Japanese steamed egg custard, emboldened by green chili and texturized by snow peas. It was informed by Chele’s inspiring encounter with Bicolano farmers and fisherfolk on a recent trip.
The Kare-Kare Bonbon on the menu was an ingenious take on the Filipino ox tail and tripe stew, reinvented as a small chocolate-like confection, crispy, juicy, and served with bagoong mayo.
In keeping with the kaiseki style of service, blue crab made its appearance on the table, tweaked with lacto-fermentation and, as well as topped with tomato sorbet, it was highlighted with local ingredients like tinapa or smoked fish replacing katsuobushi and kalamansi replacing yuzu.
Bicol Chawanmushi was how Bicol Express was interpreted for this tasting menu, with the Bicolano specialty dish as the base flavor, upon which was built the savor of the Japanese steamed egg custard, emboldened by green chili and texturized by snow peas.
In the next dish of prawns, Hollandaise, the mother of French sauces, was reinvented with a flavor distinctly Southeast Asian, thanks to the subtle infusion of ginger in the butter, the addition of local citrus-marinated salmon roe, and sigarilyas or winged beans for texture.
The fish dish—a delicate white snapper cooked in banana leaf—was a play on the many shades of white as well as a complex combination of flavors and textures, served as it was, drenched in cashew milk and tapioca and then topped with cashew praline, crispy fish skin, pepino melon, micro cilantro, and kalamansi.
Sure to be a carnivore’s delight would be HMB, short for humba, reimagined with one of Chele’s favorite ingredients—Iberico pork in a cut irresistibly called secreto, gold and crispy and cooked in its own fat and then served with charred bokchoy, potato puree, and humba sauce.
The last of the savories retraced the origins of the Philippine adobo as kinilaw, distinct from Spain’s adobo de Montaña, and evolving with Chinese influence in its unique use of soy sauce. In ode to the blend and clash of cultures present in every adobo dish today, the tenderloin cooked in Spanish adobo sauce came with adobo rice and beef kinilaw crackers with homemade mango vinegar.
To round out the degustación, a trio of desserts paraded from the kitchen. First was a panna cotta made from goat’s milk instead of soy bean, replete with orange-marinated Baguio strawberries, Chantilly, and sugar glaze, and drizzled with strawberry/vanilla syrup instead of the classic arnibal, crispy tapioca, and aromatic choco mint. Second was a unique dessert drawn from different temperatures and textures and inspired by Talandang, a barangay in Davao City known for producing single micro-origin beans. Topped with orange-and-rum-flavored chocolate ganache, local cacao nibs, chocolate ice cream with calamansi zest, and chocolate twirl, and covered with hot chocolate foam, the dish featured a chocolate meringue interior. Last but not the least was a staple in the Filipino Christmas tradition, particularly during Misa de Gallo, and a Chele Gonzalez signature dessert—the Bibingka Cheesecake.
Gallery by Chelle is open for dinners from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., from Tuesday to Sunday, at 5/F Clipp Centre Building, 39th Street Corner 11th Avenue, BGC, Taguig City, Philippines. Make a reservation via [email protected] For more artful tablescaping check out @TableLovebyPinky on Instagram or call +632 917 823 8888.