Gaita Fores on food, life & lessons learned

Food, travel and her life stories were the topics of conversation over a specially prepared brunch in her restaurant, Lusso. She reveals that, as if serendipitously (she is celebrating 25 years in the industry this month), just a few weeks prior to this interview she was going through her son’s books and found her old Florentine-bound diary that she’d forgotten she wrote in every day (“From the gray skies of Milan to what I ate on the train”) while she was in Italy. “This might be a good starting point to possibly do a retrospective of my work and everything that I’ve done all these years,” she emotionally shares. From a catering business to successful restaurants to a growing home line, she has effortlessly kept herself relevant and exciting. Here are 10 things you should know about Margarita Araneta Fores.

1. To this day, she has had no formal training in cooking. She got her training from three Italian signoras within six months of living in Italy.

Margarita, fondly called Gaita, was studying at liberal arts college Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts when she decided to go back to Manila to possibly get married to her Filipino boyfriend then. With some units credited, she went to Assumption, majored in accounting and doubled up with a lot of management subjects, just in case she would end up working with the family’s real estate business. She passed the boards and is a certified CPA. “I wasn’t really a numbers person, so at least it helps that now, I can read a balance sheet and income statements,” she laughs. 

With her mother’s consent, she flew to Italy in 1986 to study. “Signora Masha Innocenti, she was an English-speaking Italian woman who taught in her house,” she recalls of her stay in Florence. She would have morning classes, then, come lunchtime, the signora would take them to the markets to shop for fresh ingredients, or to restaurants to learn more about Italian cuisine. She went on to train under signoras Ada Parasiliti in Milan and Jo Bettoja in Roma. Upon returning home and doing a stint at a food festival in Hyatt, she now has Cibo, Cafe Bola, Lusso, Pepato (now a pop-up store on weekends at The Commissary in White Space), Cibo di M, Casa di M, Gastroteca di M, and many more big ideas under her belt.

Chef and floral artist Margarita Araneta Fores: “I was always wanting my parents’ approval.” Photos by WALTER BOLLOZOS

2. Her love for Italian culture and cuisine all started when she worked at Valentino Couture while living in New York. 

She first worked with the Italian friend of her mother who was the fur licensee of Valentino. She then met Angela Istok, the vice president in charge of licensing, and it was she who got Gaita on board to work in the main Valentino office. It wasn’t hard for Gaita to fall in love with Italian culture. As she says, there’s a lot of similarity between Filipino culture and theirs. “They’re also Catholic like us, they love their moms like us, it’s not difficult to relate to them,” she says. 

Although what her job entailed was clipping articles, buying food for his dog, checking his apartment, and making sure everything was in order for when Valentino would visit, she says that what she learned most from that job was understanding the strength of a brand. “This whole thing about the color red, and even now that he has a design team to do the designing, the brand is still so strong,” she explains. When people tell her how good the kamias shake in Cafe Bola is and that she should also put it in Cibo, she says, first, that’s what draws people to Cafe Bola, and second, it wouldn’t fit the menu of Cibo. Strength of a brand: that’s what she learned.

It was because she became friends with one of the leather goods licensees that she learned how to make pesto (“With a mortar and pestle, the traditional way!”) when she visited them in their home in Genova. It was her visit to Parisian cafes and Harry’s Bar in Venice that made her want to create that experience for the market in Manila, which is the reason she created Lusso. It was when she hosted a whole weekend for 15 friends in upstate New York, just cooking, setting the table for friends, making daiquiris with an Osterizer, that made her realize that this is what she wants to do forever. “Those experiences gel and click and you realize hey, this is the same kind of magic that I want to recreate for people, and it became my calling.”

“Now I realize those trips, even as far back as traveling to Europe with my mom in the ‘70s, those experiences are priceless, and you draw from them when you put something together.” With a bashful smile she adds, “This is the first time I’m talking about all this!”

3. It is because of her son Amado that she finally decided she would make a career out of cooking. 

Four for food: Gaita with her son Amado (right) and his friend Nicholas Pratte with his Lola, the cool Tita Ceci Magsaysay

“It was because of him that I said, ‘Hey, you have another life to look after,’ and that made me make a decision,” she reveals. She started to make a name for herself in the culinary world in 1987, and by the time her son Amado was a year old, she says the hype was dying down. She came to the realization that the food industry was not about the glamour and media attention. It was about discipline, commitment, and being on time. (“I was famous for always being late.”)

She recalls the irony of how it was so difficult to feed Amado when he was growing up, and how all he wanted was fried chicken. “It would be embarrassing, my family would always see us battling because he wouldn’t eat, I’d try to cook and puree all these things for him and he just wouldn’t eat it,” she shares. Fast-forward to now: Amado is 21 years old, studying in a liberal arts college in New York just like his mom did. “He’s become an absolute foodie,” she excitedly shares. He doesn’t cook, but he constantly updates his mom on articles about Filipino cooking or the newest foodie places. 

4. On living up to a “big family name”: “Maybe I was always wanting my parent’s approval.”

She is the second of five siblings, but growing up in the same house with her first cousins, she felt more like she was fourth in a brood of eight. “I found myself always being an over-achiever in school, I always wanted to have good grades,” she recalls. She says that it’s that love for life and sharing love for each other by sharing meals that she learned most from her family. “Both sides of the family were really into food and celebrating around the table like most Filipino families, and maybe that’s what I’ve always wanted to celebrate in the food concepts I put together, each in a different way.”

5. Gaita’s favorite markets and restaurants around the world:

Markets:

1. Union Square Greenmarket in New York City, USA. “It’s really cool because lots of chefs go there talaga, and New York being so cosmopolitan, it’s nice that a farmer’s market is still such a big part of what makes the restaurant scene thrive.”

A fave: At one of Gaita’s most favorite market, Campo Dei Fiori, Roma with owner of Norcineria Viola. It is the best source for salumi and ciccioli (Italian chicharon)

2. Campo dei Fiori in Rome, and Mercato di San Lorenzo in Florence, Italy.

3. Farmer’s Market in Quezon City. “Of course I grew up with it behind my house! I still have my suki there especially for fish and sometimes for flowers.”

Restaurants:

1. Vecchia Roma in Piazza Campitelli in Rome, and Osteria Francescana by Massimo Bottura in Modena, Italy.

2. Mario Batali’s del Posto and Danny Meyer’s Eleven Madison Park, both in New York City, USA.

3. Restaurante Martin Berasategui in San Sebastian, Spain.

6. On opening restaurants and having to close some: “I find that the closures are the biggest and most important lessons of all.”

“In the beginning, I was so saddened by having to close Pepato, but then I realized there are just certain things that have a lifespan,” she opens up. A friend of hers describes the restaurant inspired by Gaita’s grandparents to be an “energy,” and now Gaita realizes that the concept needed to move on and reinvent itself. Floor size, economy, people’s mindset, these are just some factors that contribute largely to the success of a business. Although she still hopes that it’ll reopen again as a restaurant, she says, “I always find that with every closure, there is a new opening.”

7. Gaita Fores in numbers:

11: Number of staff when she started Cibo in 1997. “Nine of them are still with us now!” Today, Cibo has 11 branches and 300 staff members.

9: Average number of events she caters and styles a week.

200: Pepper mills in her collection. “One of the things I learned in Italy, freshly ground pepper, you cannot replace with anything.”

17: Years she has been together with her boyfriend Alvin. “He bakes really well! You have to be structured because everything is measured in baking, me I cannot. I cannot!”

3,000: Number of pizza crusts their group made in the span of five days when they learned how to make pizza from a pizza master in Ischia, north of Naples. “When we got home to Manila, nothing that we learned came out. The water is different, the weather is different, the yeast reacts differently. It was so hard, I was so frustrated, up to this day it is quite a challenge.”

Friends, food and fun: A cooking and entertaining weekend in House Pawling in New York with friends Marisa Lopez, Nella Gomez, Ina Gemperle, Cara Wilson, Bibot Nolan, cousin Jorge Yulo, and cousin-in-law Gus Ojeda

350: Cost in pesos of the Pappardelle with salted red egg, asparagus spears, and truffle dish from Pepato. “If anyone asks me if there’s any favorite dish that I created, it’s that.”

8. She believes that Pinoy cuisine is on its way to becoming recognized internationally, just like Vietnamese or Thai cuisine. “We just have to have a real united approach in presenting our cuisine, we’re so regional about it.”

On what our defining dish would be, she explains, “Its not ‘my adobo is better than your adobo’ or ‘my sinigang is better than your sinigang,’ let’s just let them meet adobo and sinigang.” She says we have to accept the fact that our culture is exactly what historian and activist Carlos Celdran describes it to be: halo-halo.

“I’m actually quite optimistic and really, really excited,” she gushes. She names Enzo Lim’s Maharlika in New York City as one of the Filipino restaurants gaining popularity. What started as a guerrilla pop-up brunch place is now a permanent restaurant on 11th and 1st and is on New York magazine’s hot list. She also shares that Saveur magazine mentions something about Filipino cuisine almost every other month, how Anthony Bourdain to this day signs his books for Filipinos writing “Best pig in the world,” how Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin tweeted about our adobo, and how Tom Parker Bowles wishes there was a good Filipino restaurant in London. “Food tourism can go hand in hand with this new approach of tourism that ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines,’” she proposes. “Besides, the best way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach.”

9. Though organic ingredients are more expensive, Gaita is proud to say that Cibo is now 75 percent organic. 

Cibo’s egg, lettuce, herbs, chicken and many other ingredients are now majority organic and local. She admits it is not as reasonably priced as regular produce and it does affect their bottom line, but she says this about doing her own part in protecting the environment versus profit: “Bounty and grace come in different forms, not just in peso signs.”

. Gaita is very passionate about her current advocacy: “Rediscovering the farmers here in the Philippines. There are so many farmers using wonderful organic produce that I want to work with!”

She was thrilled to hear her “absolute idol” Mario Batali talk about the same concept recently at food congress Identita Golose. She says he explained that chefs should celebrate using the produce of the farmers who are in their area, but to use it with the same techniques and mindset as you would when you are in Italy.

“When you are working with food, your creation and what you put on the table is only as good as your relationship with your farmer, and that’s something we’ve taken for granted here in Manila,” she reveals. She regularly goes to different provinces around the country to meet with these farmers and discover more and more of their organic produce. “When you taste of organic stuff, you realize how different it is. Our taste buds have gotten so numb!”

She mentions that her squash comes from Bacolod, Paolo Araneta supplies her lettuce, Jejo Jimenez supplies tomatoes (“Just as sweet as Italian ones, it’s incredible!”) from Tagaytay; she also sources from a couple who run a company called Fresh Start Organics, and another supplier, GP Fresh from Bukidnon.

Wide-eyed and with a dreamy gaze, she says, “It’s so nice because 25 years after, its going back to where I started and I’m looking at it with young, fresh eyes again.”

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There was a moment in the middle of our interview when I noticed that she kept mentioning random moments in her life that inspired some kind of work she is doing today. I told her I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ commencement speech in Stanford when he said: “You have to believe that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” She literally jumps out of her seat in excitement, and says “It’s funny how God brings you to these places and you realize the wisdom comes out later on!” Gaita has this essential vibrancy, much like that of the Italian culture she has come to love, talking passionately with hand gestures to prove a point or tell a story. She shows us that looking back is just as important as moving forward. For those who have ever felt like their life is just a series of random experiences, or that life has lost its element of surprise, there is much inspiration to be found in Gaita and her life. “It’s been a quarter of a century and at this point, I feel there’s so much to learn and so many new things to do.”

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E-mail the author at askiamsuperbianca@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter @iamsuperbianca.