Hyperlocal meets global in a chef like Miko Calo. 

Having just put behind her a success story like Metronome, a prize-winning French fine dining restaurant that earned her acclaim both locally and internationally, she is at the moment a free spirit, free at least to undergo a two-month-long residency at luxury hotel Makati Shangri-La, where she and her all-woman team have taken over Sage Bar, inclusive of what she calls her Avec series of dinner-only collaborations every Monday with other Filipino chefs of her choice. 

Aside from the latitude Miko gave herself to do something deeply personal now that she isn’t representing a restaurant or any culinary establishment, a refreshing blend of the way she ate growing up in Butuan—where she learned to gut fish and cook vegetables as a young girl of nine or 10—and her subsequent classical training at the culinary arts school École Grégoire-Ferrandi in Paris and at Joël Robuchon kitchens in Paris, London, and Singapore is on top of the menu at her popup residency at Makati Shangri-La, Manila.

With my friend Chi Koppe, I caught Miko’s collab with fellow French-trained chef Aaron Isip of Kása Palma, one of Miko’s first friends in Paris while she was based there. It was the second in the series, which started on Nov. 18 with the chef duo Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar, who are to open their new restaurant Celera soon, after also having left Café Aurora early this year.

It’s still surreal to be back at the Makati Shangri-La, which closed almost unceremoniously at the height of the pandemic while we were still in and out of the lockdowns. Resuming operations in August last year, the hotel, as it feels to me, seems eternally on soft-launch, although since the reopening I have been to at least three delightful and eventful meals at the hotel—two dim sum lunches at the Shang Palace and an Argentinian wine pairing dinner at Sage, not counting this fourth one, the Miko Calo residency popup at Sage.  

This Mico Calo x Aaron Isip collaboration dinner tops all my visits to the Makati Shangri-La so far. I’m especially over the moon with the third item on the menu—frogs’ legs in yuzu meunière with potato purée, a nod to the Kapampangan origins of the Medina side of Miko’s aunt, travel connoisseur, TV personality, and actress Susan Calo-Medina, whom she recognizes as instrumental in developing her taste for the finer things. The frog dish, only the second time I ever ate frogs in my life, was so good I couldn’t help wiping it off the plate, including the oil that settled on the sides.

Equally satisfying were the starter dishes, tupig blini, a refreshing take on the Russian savory pancake with glutinous rice, smoked fish mascarpone, and smoked caviar, which was served alongside the beignet, a Frenchified version of shakoy, Butuan’s traditional deep-fried twisted donuts, but served with comet cheese, boudin cream, and onion chutney. Also served was oyster topped with caramelized topinambour or Jerusalem artichoke and pickled pineapple. 

The mains were a flavor parade, starting off with brown butter roasted lapu-lapu covered in tinapa bread crumbs with coconut-coriander velouté and candied tomatoes. Ube bouillabaise came next, a trifecta of fish with ube in rouille sauce, followed by the miso-cured duck magret with braised leeks, pickled red radish, foie gras gastrique, and what the menu called foiesilog.

For desserts, we had a double treat—chestnut ice cream with salty chestnut cream and crunchy-as-Krispies soy-cereal, kicked up with Baba au Rum or baba soaked in dark rum and elderflower with peach confiture and tonka bean chantilly.

Over all, it was an exceptional meal, a labor of love up close and personal with two Filipino chefs, who share in common something so rare as mastering a French flair under the most exacting standards of French superstar chefs and applying it to great effect and with aplomb on dishes traditional to the Philippines, particularly in the realm of their own distinct experiences growing up in the country.   

Catch Miko’s other collabs—with Bedford, England-born Filipino chef Joshua Boutwood on Dec. 2 and Italian-trained Margarita Forés on Dec. 9.  (632) 8813 8888 | shangrila.com