With most restaurants, when they’ve stumbled upon a winning menu, it becomes carved in stone, with a sprinkling of monthly specials introduced on a regular basis to keep the menu looking “fresh.” By and large, Filipinos are creatures of habit, and I know of several people who’ll head to a restaurant of choice and literally order the same set of dishes each time, hoping to recapture the magic of that first visit. So it’s only natural that most restaurateurs will pander to that behavior.

I preface with the above, as I salute Sean Yuquimpo and Aaron Shiu, the team behind La Spezia, for daring to stick to their guns and be different. If their original La Spezia QC was known for changing up the menu of elevated Italian cuisine every three to four months, their La Spezia BGC is following suit and has done a drastic overhaul of their menu, with up to 70 percent of the current menu consisting of new entries.

As Sean emphasized, “The driving mission has always been about good food, about exploring new flavors with our clientele. We don’t want to be a static establishment, repeating ourselves and merely replaying the old hits. This keeps us on our toes and fires up the imagination, coming up with and creating new dishes, then sharing them with the customers.”

I was with my three sons for our regular Sunday lunch, and this allowed us to sample a good number of the new dishes and share them with you.

For the antipasti, the ones we ordered were:

The Ceviche di Capesante is Hokkaido scallops cooked rare, with sliced strawberries, a strawberry coulis, kamias gel, and basil oil. If at first you’ll wonder how well this seeming overdose of fruits — the strawberry and the kamias — would work with the scallops, be at peace. They don’t clash at all, and each bite that combined all the flavor profiles was sublime.

Their burrata mozzarella di bufala, with tomato gazpacho, compressed hami melon, mint and EVOO is a new go-to for me. The consistency of the burrata is of high quality, and I loved the use of fruit to enhance the flavor of the mozzarella. The tomato gazpacho mingling with each serving of the burrata and melon is priceless.

The Zeppole is lemon and sugar-coated ricotta and anchovy puffs, with walnuts and arugula. This is a sweet concept made savory, and you’ll be amazed with how well it works. The touch of the walnuts and arugula combines wonderfully with the anchovy one detects in the puff. For two of my sons, this one was their absolute favorite.

For the La Spezia primi, we had:

The Goose Ravioli of HK roast goose, foie gras emulsion, EVOO. This is one of the retained menu items, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s like a Hong Kong dish crept into the kitchen and masquerades as Italian. It’s subversive, whimsical, and just simply delicious. It’s still one of the best introductions to why La Spezia is different and unique.

The Clam Risotto Arborio is fresh clams, saffron stock, bell pepper, and smoked paprika oil. If one is insisting on having a rice dish, this is the one to order and end up raving about. Think vongole, but instead of spaghetti, it’s served with Arborio rice.

For our secondi:

The Lamb Rack Kinross Station MB2+ half rack, with pumpkin terrine, beetroot gel, and pumpkin foam, is lamb kept simple and flavorful while upping the quality of the lamb. I’m partial to beetroot and loved the gel. The pumpkin terrine is your “mashed potatoes.”

The Gindara is grilled gindara, with root vegetable scales, nduja beurre blanc, potato confit, black garlic, and EVOO. Beyond being a visual delight — the veggies acting like fish scales — there’s so much happening here and yet staying basic in terms of flavor profile.

The Squid has chorizo, caramelized onions, pine nuts, smoked bell pepper, tomato fondue, and EVOO. It’s stuffed squid of a different order. Think relleno, but with a new set of ingredients, and lying on a bed of the tomato fondue. One of my sons was calling this his all-time favorite treatment for squid.

Our I Dolci was their apple cheesecake, and I’ll credit Sean for mentioning it in that manner and surprising us when the dessert was plated in front of us. It’s so pretty as a deconstructed creation, and it seemed such a shame to actually eat the dessert. But yes, the apple segments, the cheese in the middle — they all worked in consonance to satisfy.

And I’m thanking the chocolate gods that the La Spezia chocolate mousse survived the cut. The olive oil, the salt, the freshly churned mousse — an ambrosial ending to any La Spezia visit. Trust me when I say that no photo can do justice to just how this one will be remembered.

So out of the 10 dishes described here, only two are holdovers from the previous menu. That deserves a round of applause and a fresh visit to the restaurant. Located on the ground floor of the GSC Corporate Tower on Triangle Drive, BGC, La Spezia has my vote for being “daring with reason.”