Meet the Filipino finalists of World Gourmet Summit Awards

SINGAPORE — The chefs of the world have spoken: Filipino chefs Gene Gonzalez and Antonio “Tony Boy” Escalante have been voted as finalists in the 21st World Gourmet Summit Awards of Excellence held in Singapore last week.

Chef Gene of Café Ysabel in Manila and Chef Tony Boy of Antonio’s in Tagaytay were both nominated as finalists for the award Asian Cuisine Chef of the Year (Regional). Escalante was also a finalist for the Restaurateur of the Year award for his namesake restaurant, Antonio’s.

READ: Filipino chefs make it to finals global gourmet awards

At age 23, Gonzalez opened his restaurant, Cafe Ysabel, in San Juan. Apart from a series of apprenticeships in France and Italy, he has completed various specialized courses in food arts, Culinary Institute of America, California Culinary Academy and the Callebaut Chocolate College. He is a co-founder of the Alta Cocina Filipina, the movement for contemporary Filipino cuisine.

Alta Cocina Filipina, he said, was set up by him and a group of chefs to vouch not only for Filipino traditional cooking, but also to spread the use of Filipino ingredients.

This week, Gonzalez will be taking part in Spanish-themed Madrid Fusion food festival in Manila, where he will showcase modern interpretations on traditional cuisine, particularly, the different uses of calamansi.

“If the Japs have yuzu, the Thais have manao, we (Filipinos) also have calamansi,” he enthused.

An avid writer, Gonzalez is also an editor of a weekly food page for one of Manila’s major newspapers. He has also authored cookbooks, including, “Cocina Sulipena,” a book on 19th century recipes from Pampanga.

He is one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men awardees in Culinary Arts and at present, author to a book series on Philippine cuisine. He was also board member of the College of Saint Benilde and at present, conseiller culinaire of the National board of the Chaine des Rotisseurs and also member of the London based International Wine and Food Society.

Cafe Ysabel in Manila  Photo from Cafe Ysabel website

Chef Gene with celebrity chefs Anthony Bourdain (left, photo by Keithandjovie.blogspot.com) and Bobby Chinn (right, photo by Traveldocumentaries.co.uk)

Meanwhile, born in Negros Oriental and raised amid the rich cultural tradition of his home province, Chef Tony Boy learned about the joy even the simplest meals can offer at a young age, and he grew to understand how food can bring people together.

According to him, “Food has always been important in my family, but it was also from my family that I learned to appreciate the beauty of the old, the traditional.” This aesthetic appreciation and love for entertaining would help lay the foundations for the look and atmosphere of Antonio’s today.

Becoming a chef was not part of Tony Boy’s plans, not at first. He was in his third year of dentistry when he decided that it was not the right path for him. So, he became a flight steward, and this was when he discovered his true calling.

“Travel was more than just about fun for me. It is inspiration,” he narrated in his website.

Traveling around the globe was how he discovered the wealth of gastronomic traditions throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. But more importantly, Tony Boy learned that fine food could be found outside the bounds of big cities. In fact, some of his very best dining experiences were found in the countryside, closer to the produce and livestock that serve as the lifeblood of any great restaurant. Eventually, he decided that it was time to pursue his life’s passion—food.

Antonio's in Tagaytay  Photo from Antonio's website

Antonio’s did not begin as restaurant, but as a farm. After leaving the airline industry, Tony Boy and his wife, Agnes, immersed themselves in setting up the farm. This not only provided the Escalantes with an income by supplying Manila’s higher-end restaurants with fresh produce, but it would eventually become the vital backbone of Antonio’s much-praised menu.

In 1999, Tony Boy left the Philippines to pursue his dream of becoming a professional chef. He studied in the Regency Park Institute of Tafe in Adelaide, Australia. “When I got to Adelaide, I thought I was already a good cook,” he recalls. “But the truth was, I had a lot to learn.”

While in South Australia, he would also start what he describes as “making his bones”– taking on menial kitchen jobs such as working the grill in Gaucho Argentinean Restaurant or cooking on the line at the Hilton Adelaide.

After his stint in Australia, Chef Tony Boy returned to Manila to begin his internship in the Mandarin Oriental’s prestigious Tivoli Grill. It was here that Chef Tony Boy would meet and work with his gastronomic mentors, Chef Norbert Gandler and Chef Humphrey Navarro. His employment arrangement was, at the time, unique. For three years, Chef Tony Boy worked without compensation in the kitchen of The Tivoli on weekdays. In exchange, he would keep his weekends free so he could cook for paying guests at his home in Tagaytay.

In November 16, 2002, Chef Tony Boy opened the doors of Antonio’s, his fine dining restaurant set in the rolling hills of Tagaytay, to much critical and popular acclaim. And because he wanted to share his lifelong obsession with breakfast food with his guests, he also launched his second restaurant, Breakfast at Antonio’s, in November 2003. In August of the next year, The Grill by Antonio’s began serving home-style Filipino cuisine.

In December 2012, after an extensive renovation, Chef Tony Boy reopened Breakfast at Antonio’s at its original location along the picturesque Tagaytay ridge. Besides improvements to the kitchen and dining area, Breakfast at Antonio’s now features a retail store on the premises, selling products used in all the Antonio’s establishments.

In 2013, Antonio’s also launched a line of ready-to-eat products that would allow guests to bring the Antonio’s experience home with them.

For the fourth time and for four years in a row, Chef Tony Boy’s Antonio’s placed number one in the Philippines in the 2011/2012 list of The Miele Guide, considered as the “bible” of Asia’s culinary greats and Asia’s answer to Europe’s oldest and most popular hotel and restaurant guide, the Michelin.

“Now, we are being recognized and it gives me a lot of pleasure to be just being here and get to touch-base with a lot of other chefs. If Singapore can do it, if their culinary team can do it, what we Filipinos just need is just a lot of patience, a lot of funding, we can do it!” Chef Gene assured.

Suckling pig, a specialty at Antonio's. Photo from Antonio's website