Peninsula kicks off 50th year with four-hands dinner

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YOHAN DA COSTA’S L’Œuf de Poule

RÉMY CARMIGNANI’S Bouillabaisse

IT WAS 1976, and the Philippines was hosting a huge number of delegates for the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Marcos family sat on top of the country, and beauty-obsessed Imelda had a string of prestigious hotels built to host the delegates.

A lot of things have happened since then (the Marcos family would flee the country ten years later due to the 1986 EDSA Revolution), and many of the hotels built in that year have fallen: The Peninsula Manila still stands.

The hotel’s storied past was given a toast on the weekend of May 22 and 23, through a four-hands dinner at Old Manila. In celebration of its 50^th anniversary, The Peninsula Manila presented a collaboration at Old Manila between the hotel’s Executive Chef Rémy Carmignani and senior Chef de Cuisine Yohan Da Costa of The Peninsula Tokyo’s Peter.

Media guests were given a preview lunch of the final dinner, with most of the dishes paired with wines from Ferraton Père & Fils, a Rhône valley producer.

The meal began with a selection of canapés: a Leek Vinaigrette, Pommes Anna (a dish of sliced and layered potatoes created during the Second French Empire) holding some wagyu and shavings of black truffle, and a Tuna Tartare Tartlet. These were paired with a properly celebratory Edouard Duval – Brut d’Eulalie Champagne. This particular sparkler was very crisp, almost as stiff as a starched shirt. It added structure to the fish, gave vivacity to the potato, and led the vegetal Leek Vinaigrette in a dance.

The next dish was an offering from Mr. Da Costa: L’Œuf de Poule (Chicken Egg, quite literally). It was a poached chicken egg with seasonal truffle, mushroom duxelles, and Champagne sauce. This dish captured the very essence of mildness, from texture to taste. The little bites of mushroom, cleverly hidden, was a neat surprise that added earthiness to the refined and silky dish. We cheated and paired this with the champagne, which added structure. Its intended pairing, the Ferraton Père & Fils – La Tournée Blanc, was made from a blend of Vermentino and Viognier. It had a light scent of citrus belying its complexity, which included herbs and fruit in its notes. To the egg, it lent some of its liveliness.

Mr. Carmignani was not to be outdone and came out with a Bouillabaisse, the classic French seafood soup (all grown-up, of course). It had Atlantic turbot, Hokkaido scallops, octopus, and a seafood broth made from the Turbot’s bones and head. This was emphasized by a saffron rouille (a French egg yolk sauce). The soup was quite delicate but had a very nuanced flavor — and its pairing was a surprise. While usually taught to pair seafood with whites, with this we had the Ferraton Père & Fils – La Tournée Rouge, made of Syrah and Grenache. The wine had flowers and tannins in its scent, but an approachable juicy taste. It surprisingly caressed the rather delicate soup.

The next dish had a nod to Mr. Da Costa’s work in Japan: La Boueuf Japonais featured wagyu with white asparagus, carrot mousseline, and beef jus flavored with a little bit of yuzu koshō, a paste of yuzu peel and chili. We haven’t had beef that delicate in a while: it rested very quickly on the tongue before melting away and leaving a fond memory. With this dish, we took our time, savoring the delicate qualities of the beef and the white asparagus. Sharing a pairing with the previous dish, the La Tournée Rouge was such a perfect match, it seemed like it was born along with the cow that yielded the beef.

The meal ended with a showpiece by Mr. Carmignani, Le Pamplemousse (grapefruit). It was a grapefruit and wasabi sorbet with homemade granola, and raspberry compote. The dish was heavily fragrant and a play on textures, and this was paired with a raspberry eau-de-vie, a Hepp Distillery – Framboise Sauvage. It tempered the rather rich dessert and matched well with the raspberries, despite its strength and warmth, which would have given weaker constitutions a cartoonish reaction.

In an interview after the lunch, Mr. Da Costa told us about how he felt about cooking French food in Tokyo. “It’s very challenging. The Japanese guests, they usually eat less salty (food) than French people. The flavor is less (strong) than normal French restaurants that are in France. We needed to adjust,” he said. “We need to find the balance to make it (appeal) to everybody.”

After all, he says, “The first target is to make the guest happy. To let them enjoy the food, and of course, they’ll come back to see us.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Carmignani discussed the menu, highlighting its seasonality through the ingredients: particularly white asparagus (a delicacy achieved by covering shoots with soil so they grow without exposure to sunlight). “White asparagus is something very specific for this season. If you don’t use it now, you have to wait for one more year.”

While trying to describe the Bouillabaise, he inadvertently told the story of the Peninsula, too, and we guess that with good food, the story is universal. “All our dishes are memories. Something we like to do, we love to cook, we love to eat, we love to share.”

Celebrations continue throughout the year, with a special dinner on Oct. 7 at Old Manila. A Swiss chef who spent time at The Pen will return in August for a special promotion at the Lobby, while Peninsula releases a special Golden Pineapple IPA at its bars for its golden anniversary within the month. Finally, there will be a special promotion involving nine wines from Bordeaux made in 1976, the Peninsula Manila’s founding year. — Joseph L. Garcia