GARDE MANGER
With oysters and sisig on salads—Garde Manger is set to create a whole new category on healthy dining
sisig takes on the form a rilette on top of a salad. The light dressing coats the lettuce leaves with flavor and allows the rillette to soak in and take on an unmistakable taste
Miko Aspiras is one of just two chefs based in the Philippines who have been honored with an invitation to deliver a talk at Madrid Fusion in Manila this April. It’s the sole and exclusive Asian venue for the most prestigious gastronomy congress in the world. Many of the finest, most highly regarded, most awarded international chefs will be present, including Spain’s irrepressible José Andrés and Fil-Am Paul Qui from Texas, Top Chef winner and James Beard awardee. It’s intimidating company, but Miko won’t be standing on the shoulders of giants. He’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with them. And he hasn’t even turned thirty.
Kristine Lotilla, equally youthful, is Miko’s partner in Scout’s Honor, that bespoke cookie shop at Hole in the Wall, a crowd-drawer ever since it opened at the end of 2014. The Enderun graduate gained valuable experience in the kitchens of the Raffles and Fairmont in Makati.
Noel Mauricio is even younger but his résumé is already as lengthy. He’s worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, and along with Kristine and Miko, they’re the creative culinary team behind Le Petit Soufflé, the charming café in Century City that has a unique Japanese-influenced take on French classics.
I had the chance to meet with the trio a few weeks ago at Garde Manger, their newest collaboration, their version of a “cold kitchen”, a salad bar/food laboratory where they toss healthy eating ideas like… so many salad greens. A “garde manger” is essentially a refrigerated pantry where pâtés and terrines and similar appetizers are prepared. For Miko, Kristine, and Noel, it’s also the playground where they experiment on concepts on preserving and enhancing food, making the ordinary, extraordinary, and the expected, unexpected. The concept’s simple enough: convince people to eat healthier by incorporating more flavor.
For example, sisig: it takes on the form a rilette, and then tops a salad. The light dressing they designed achieves a double purpose; it coats the lettuce leaves with flavor, but at the same time, it allows the rillette to soak in and take on the unmistakable taste of Pampanga’s pride. I won’t tell you the secret ingredients of the dressing, but if you’re a true sisig fan, you’ll know when you take the first bite. All that’s missing, really, is the sizzle. Oysters are on the menu as well, served straight from the sea it seems, but adorned with surprising components: one with pickled green apple slivers; another doused with gin, sprinkled with a squeeze of lime, and finished with basil; a third, brightened with wasabi. It’s all very new, all very brave, and all very good.