Best chef collaboration of 2022: Metiz x Metronome
Fresh and fermented tomatoes, guava, vanilla and ampalaya: These are flavors one wouldn’t normally think of combining on a single plate, especially for a first course, when the chefs wish to make a good initial impression. It sounded so dubious in print, to me at least. Surprisingly, in taste, it wasn’t at all.
This element of wonder ran throughout the nine-course tasting menu chefs Miko Calo of Metronome and Stephan Duhesme of Metiz prepared for a one-night-only event.
Interestingly enough, the same can be said of the unlikely tandem, whose respective restaurants are leagues apart— refined French studded with indulgences like foie gras and caviar for her, and modern Filipino championing local ingredients and fermentation for him.
In a manner that only experienced palates and clever thinking like theirs can achieve, they managed to produce a very cohesive and well-thought-out repertoire where both worked together on each and every course. This, I must point out, clearly exhibited what a purposeful four-hands dinner is.
Culinary intersections
It was actually Duhesme’s first time to be involved in a joint endeavor. “It took
long because I wasn’t comfortable with doing collaborations,” he said. “We got offers, but with Miko, it just felt right to do my first one with her. There needed to have a pinning moment where I know I could make this work.”
“We manipulate things differently,” added Calo. “But our food is rooted in technique. The ideals are the same but the expressions are different.” Though there are intersections in their culinary philosophies that they can explore, the two decided to find an anchor in the form of a shared experience that they
Chefs Stephan Duhesme and Miko Calo’s fusion of elements and techniques ensured that this one-night-only event was a unique success
could build their collaboration on.
For that, Calo turned to her cousin Marc Medina. “We were lucky enough to be hosted by him at his ancestral house in Arayat, Pampanga. Their family has a long-standing tradition of serving heirloom recipes,” she says. They did not only get to feast on fare based on heirloom family recipes, but they also found time to hang out, talk together and find even more common ground.
This consequently produced a menu so cohesive and seamless that it was hard to tell what each chef’s contribution to the plate was—which, I would say, is a mark of forces truly coming together.
A chunk of Spanish mackerel from Sorsogon was wrapped in parachute leaf and served with juicy segments from a Sagada orange, local buttermilk and fermented radish root dressing. A Hokkaido scallop was bronzed in butter, sliced and laid on top of a mound of pureed Jerusalem artichoke, crab fat and smoked patis yolk, then surrounded with foam made of milk and lemongrass.
Learning experience
Sustainably farmed apahap
from Bacolod that had been aged for five days and poached in butter and white wine became the main component of an artistic plate painted with burnt eggplant puree, kasubha
oil and coriander sauce.
Abalone that was steamed in sake and grilled
hid underneath a blanket of
foie gras, crispy pork skin and lechon-style liver sauce. Their version of suam na mais arrived as multiple types of corn cooked with fermented garbanzo tausi, yuzu broth, and a delicate chawanmushi flawaiters vored with dashi. Kombu-cured pork tomahawk, kissed by the grill, rested on burong kanin and garnished with torn fresh mustasa leaves. Again, these were culinary equations only experience can formulate.
The desserts were not exempted from their Midas touch.
Mara de bois strawberries from France were macerated in sugar and salt, then plated with sampinit vinegar jelly, pandan oil and
gata spuma.
Closing the meal was a halo-halo made of reduced carabao milk ice cream, white bean paste, leche flan gel, corn milk meringue and corn husk crisps.
The event proved to be a learning experience for Duhesme, who got to play with imported ingredients, something he doesn’t usually practice in his turf. Calo, on the other hand, acknowledged the challenge of being able to cook in a different setting. “It was a test of my and my team’s organization, adaptability and confidence in our own skills and technique.”
Among the many collaborations held in Manila this year, this unlikely tandem would have to be my most favorite, because it defined what a real and successful collaboration is.