A culinary journey in six courses at The Tasting Room

And so there it is — our amuse bouche on the table in this beautiful dining room at the City of Dreams Manila’s Crown Towers hotel. It doesn’t look anything like what you’d expect. Called “The Forest,” it looks like a terrarium with branches impaled on the grass floor and bearing goodies like Iberico ham, apple curry chips, salmon candy, Gorgonzola cheese with almond crumble, tapioca chips with beetroot and wasabi marbling served with Rouille sauce flavored with saffron and garlic.

One look at it and I know it’s going to be a culinary journey and not just a meal. 

It’s just the first of six courses by The Tasting Room chef de cuisine William Mahi and accompanied by wines selected by head sommelier and restaurant manager Damien Planchenault.

The two men have designed what may very well be the most unique menu in Manila.

William and Damien have worked in several Michelin-star restaurants and under acclaimed chefs around the world, both getting their start in France.

William worked for Alain Ducasse in Plaza Athenee and Helene Darroze in her eponymous restaurant in Paris before leaving France. It was during his stint at Spondi in Athens as chef de cuisine that the restaurant received its two Michelin stars and was ranked 97th of the Best Restaurants in the World by San Pellegrino in 2013.

As head sommelier, Damien also did his rounds of prestigious properties in France under Patrick Jeffroy, then moved to the Old Course Hotel in Saint Andrews, Scotland, and then to Dubai’s The Palm Jumeirah and The One and Only Royal Mirage.

Prior to working together in Manila, they almost found themselves in the same restaurant in Lyon but William was moving back to Paris and Damien was just starting in Lyon. After that, both men went on a circuitous journey in restaurants around the world that included stints in Beirut, Shanghai and Istanbul.

But it seems that it is in Manila that the concept for the Tasting Room’s menu found the right place and time.

“We offer two options — you create your own tasting menu based on your preferences or the chef can design the tasting menu for you,” says restaurant manager Damien Planchenault.

Instead of the usual menu that starts with appetizers, soup and salad, and then entrees and desserts, the 28 dishes at The Tasting Room are categorized into “Beginnings” with three dishes to choose from; “Rare & Unique” with four choices that includes free-range pigeon; “Organic & Sustainable” with salmon, lobster or pork belly; “Contemporary” featuring five dishes; “Aqua” offers three choices of mixed seafood dishes — tuna and mussel paella, cod fish and john dory. 

“Tierra” has duck liver, Wagyu beef,  Barbarie duck and French lamb rack; “Douceurs” has four kinds of desserts and “Cheeses” offers six including Stilton and Sable du Boulonnais.

The set menus start with five courses called Damien’s Delight (P3,500) then on to six courses called Chef William’s Mood (P3,900), seven courses (P4,600) and eight courses (P4,900).

And you don’t have to follow the usual progression. Technically, you can have five starters or appetizers or main courses — but who would do that and miss out on the rest of the wonderful dishes?

“It’s not a fixed menu,” Damien adds. “This is where we like to interact with our guests. I still believe that if there are four gentlemen at the table, you don’t offer the same menu to four ladies. If you have four Arabic guests at the table, you do not offer the pork element. Sometimes the chef designs the menu and I decide on the wines. People are shy to ask questions, that’s why we designed this format — to make them ask questions and interested in what they are about to eat. Some diners get lost when choosing wines because there are a lot of choices, so we help them in that depending on their experience with wines.”

The Tasting Room carries the master wine list of City of Dreams, which has the most prestigious wines, most expensive vintages and most popular in the world. If you want your tasting menu accompanied by wine, just add P1,500 for the five courses.

You can order à la carte, too, but the set menus offer great value for Michelin-level quality and it’s fun to let chef William design a menu for you or maybe even invite him over to discuss your menu for the night.

Which is what he did for us last week.

I’m Basque,” chef William Mahi declares.

Oh, French Basque, we say, referring to the French side of region. “No, no, just Basque” he says. “I’m very nationalistic.”

The Basque region in France (a smaller area than the Spanish side) is where he got his start as a 13-year-old boy working in a Michelin-star restaurant. It’s how most journeys for great chefs begin — at a very young age and in restaurants or their mother’s kitchens that start them off on what for many would be a global career.

It was the same for William. And it seems he is taking us along on his ride for our dinner at The Tasting Room.

Having started with “The Forest” for our amuse bouche, the second course is duck liver terrine. The goodness of the foie gras practically explodes in your mouth and yet it is delicate as well, wrapped in spiced red wine jelly served with port wine reduction sauce and strawberry sauce, apple compote, grapes, dried figs/fig chutney, strawberry macarons, strawberry marshmallow, lychee jelly, raspberry powder, finished with honey crisps, green apple chips and pain d’epices.

Next comes what everybody should include in their tasting menu: 52-Degree Egg. The egg is poached in olive oil for one hour until it reaches 52 degrees. It is dropped into a bowl of caramelized onion and bacon, potato mousse, topped with slices of Iberico ham and porcini/cepes powder and finished with summer French truffles.

The fourth course is Hot & Cold  Lobster, a soup with lobster carpaccio with ponzu sorbet, edamame beans, crispy spaghetti in soy sauce, nori flakes finished off with hot soy consommé.

It is very light that it balances off the creaminess of the previous course and prepares your palate for the next one, which is Wagyu beef. Perfectly seared and seasoned, the dry-aged Wagyu beef is served with beef jus and chlorophyll sauce together with smoked cream, potato crisp and very creamy truffle mashed potato.

By this time, we are very satisfied but William wants to end our dreamy journey on a sweet note. Out comes the Sans-Filet, a dessert featuring the different textures of chocolate and containing chocolate cremeaux, biscuit and mousse with saffron ice cream and orange confiture.

There is a lot to be said of the dining scene in Manila. We have in the past decade experienced a healthy growth in both small restaurants that have generated a loyal following and fine-dining restaurants that have broken the mold for what used to be exclusionary.

The Tasting Room is just what our city needs to up our game. It is innovative, offers good value, and teaches all of us a thing or two about the world and the world of Michelin-star dining as it invites Michelin-star chefs to collaborate with chef William.

It also holds regular wine dinners with wine companies and themed events such as the “Two Masters,” which featured top mixologist Sam Jeveons offering cocktails to pair with William’s dishes.

Apart from these, it has also become a favorite for intimate events and meetings. In two private rooms of the Tasting Room, proposals have been made (designed with the help of Damien — and with roe petals and violinists, too!), intimate celebrations and meetings have been held — all with a view of how your tasting menu comes together.

The private rooms offer a flat-screen TV that shows the kitchen of chef William as he prepares your meal. Each tasting menu is never the same because each guest is different.

Soon, William says, there will be a Chef’s Table right in the kitchen. And what kind of diners does he think that will attract?

“A lot,” he says. “Because they always request for my presence, so now it would put them right there.”

* * *

The Tasting Room is located on the ground floor of Crown Towers hotel in City of Dreams, Manila. For reservations, book online at www.cityofdreams.com.ph or via phone call 800-8080. Business hours are from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday.