MENU: GAITA FORES (Unedited)

Hands On Cook and Florist
(Photo from Margarita Fores)

HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST

Twenty years?

Something seemed amiss with my sight and sound coordination. Because I was looking at this beautiful woman who looked like she was all of 30. Well, okay, maybe 32. And she had just proudly shared with me that she has been in the food business now for twenty years, celebrating the anniversary of her debut as chef this November. I did the math and realized she couldn't possibly have had her debut as chef at age 12, no matter how much Promil she downed as a toddler. Suddenly uneasy that I had been addressing her by her first name all this time, when Filipino gentility dictated that our age difference accord her a title of respect, I blurted, "Should I call you Tita Gaita?" To which I received, in a decibel higher than normal, "No!!! I'll kill you!" And we both laughed.

The lady is Margarita Fores and twenty years into the business, she is still youthful, laughing as heartily as ever and at the top of her game.

I heard of Margarita Fores ten years ago. First, when Area Cafe was the hippest new restaurant. And then a few months later when Cibo took its place as the hippest new restaurant. I remember poring over the menu in Glorietta (it was just an island kiosk with seating then) and being fascinated by all the new flavors she was introducing. Before long, puttanesca, telefono, margherita were staples in the Filipino's pasta vocabulary and tiramisu wasn't just a line from When Harry Met Sally anymore. Margarita Fores made it her mission to indoctrinate Metro Manila with Italian sophistication and before long, Filipinos in the metro had outgrown "spa-ketchup"!

At the same time, her star kept rising as the caterer to the A-list. Name an AAA-list event - wedding, launch, anniversary - and she's bound to have been in charge of the kitchen. I ask her over a dalandan shake if it's been tough catering to the selective crowd. She mentions some challenges but manages to end each story with a silver lining that you can't help but be fascinated by her.

She remembers the wedding of a very rich Chinese couple. "The bride wanted the waiters to flambe all the entrees! And we're talking two hundred fifty guests!" But she did it and all those entrees were served crackling hot before each table.

When Chris Yang, son of Mc Donald's George Yang, got married, the young couple had no one but Fores in mind but she initially turned them down because a guest list of 800 was just a little too much for her. "You see, we bring our kitchen to the event. We don't cook the food at a base or at our commissary and make the food travel because that will alter the taste of the food. So we've devised a way to bring the kitchen to the event and every time we cater, we set up a kitchen right there. But how do you create a portable kitchen for 800 guests?" Mr. Yang and his bride would not take no for an answer so the concept of an assembly line for 1,000 guests was born. She also purchased new cutlery, tablecloths, the works. "Now we can cater for a thousand guests easy!" she beams.

Food Stole the Show: Catering for a dinner onstage the Nicanor Abelardo Hall theater
(Photo from Gaita Fores)

But her favorite event of all was for a dinner at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Not in the lobby but onstage. An international bank was wooing potential clients. When the curtains went down, guests exited from the Nicanor Abelardo Hall to the lobby only to come back a few minutes later to go up onto the stage where dinner took its turn as the star of the show. The waiters made their entrance not from the wings but from the main doors of the theater, down the aisle, then up the stage. Fores cooked from the wings. "Imagine, we had twelve minutes to set up! ... We had a 'dress rehearsal' the night before and the waiters were given stage directions."

There have also been some challenging dinners prepared for Malacanang, where she has been invited to cater more than a few times. First, because of the guest and protocol requirements - "They gave us diet restrictions for Prince Andrew" - yes, Andrew brother of Charles (as pointed out by Teddy ;)). Second, because she has made it her mission to always serve something Filipino-inspired if it is served in or for the Palace. For Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who just wanted some spicy noodles, she created a hot laing (taro leaves in coconut milk) pasta. Thaksin loved it. Now this dish is on the menu of Cafe Bola, another Fores-owned chain of restaurants, called Botsky's Laing and Coconut Cream, credit being given to the cook in her staff who taught her how to cook the laing Bicol-style.

Indeed, you easily pick up that Fores is in the habit of giving credit to her employees. It is one of the keys to her ever-expanding restaurant business. (There are currently 8 Cibos, 2 Cafe Bolas and her high-end restaurant cum showroom, Pepato.) One of her cooks was a former mason but ironically now has one of the "lightest" hands and creates beautifully textured pasta. Another worker who now helps her with flower arrangements was her mom's favorite maid: "Mom," Fores reasoned when her mother got upset at the maid leaving the household, "If she can do more than your labada (laundry), you have to allow her to grow." One of her most trusted cooks, Linda from Sign of the Anvil and Intermezzo, is sent on special missions. The first time I interviewed Fores, I overheard this conversation with this trusted aide: "Linda, bakit hindi pa na-de-deliver yung diwal? I-taxi mo!" ( Linda, why haven't the angel wings been delivered?) It sounded like an ordinary food delivery but Fores was not frantic on the phone with her right hand for nothing. The diwal recipient was Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

At that interview, two years ago, Fores struck me as a woman with an iron hand, living at a frenetic pace, impatient and demanding, albeit charming all throughout. She juggled checking in on the Pepato kitchen for their ongoing Diwal Festival, the interview with me just outside the door, some small talk with a couple of guests who dropped in to say hi, and what she called "the case of the missing diwal" which they had to find because she had promised Luli Arroyo, the First Daughter, that the First Family would have some for dinner that night. The interview was interrupted at least seven times.

Two years later, she is handling bigger challenges: Cibo, which is running on its tenth year, is opening another branch in Greenbelt 5. A new concept restaurant called Grace Inn, as a tribute to Fores' grandparents who for a time lived in Grace Park in Caloocan, will also be opening in Greenbelt 5 very soon. (Fores describes this as "a restaurant with the feel of a hotel lobby" and it sounds like a very hip concept. ) Pepato is under renovation. And at the end of the month she is going to Spain with the President to whip up a Filipino feast at the Ritz.

Yet she is calmer and, it seems, even happier. She leafs through an album she brought with her that contains a treasure chest of clippings from as way back as 1987. "Look at those shoulder pads!" she shrieks like a little girl, so amused at her past looks. We giggle about 80s fashion trends and how the boys looked so Menudo. This time the interview is interrupted by only one phone call and it is from her son, who is having shopping trouble and can't decide between a Ferragamo and a Gucci. (Ah, the troubles of the A-list. Fores advises the Gucci.)

Designer-clad as she is, though, she remains amazingly down-to-earth. And although a Philippine Tatler with her on the cover stares at us from shelves by the front doors of Bola, five minutes with her will tell you that this pretty face is more than just a society girl. Her favorite picture shows her standing on a table as she makes flower arrangements for an event. And she can just as easily tell you about her trips to Dangwa and Farmer's Market as she can about her trips to Italy and New York. More than a restaurateur, she is a hands-on cook.

She also exudes a love for country that is inspiring, sharing that she started Cibo because she wanted to create an alternative to the American franchise that still offered authentic Italian food while being purely Filipino-owned. But even more than this, she glows when she talks about her family, especially about her grandparents (she is the granddaughter of Amado Araneta - as in the Aranetas who own almost all of Cubao and built the Araneta Coliseum), clearly proud of her heritage. She shares that the event dearest to her heart is still 100th birthday party of her grandfather. "We had a coliseum made of roses as the centerpiece," she remembers fondly.

How does she handle it all? For one, she takes time to stop and smell the roses. Figuratively and literally as she is now also a floral designer, creating elegant arrangements for events, while maintaining her catering business. For another, she keeps her sense of awe alive by traveling, discovering, experimenting and taking in everything the world has to offer, big or small. "Look at that," she points at a purple creature in her latest floral creation, "That's talong (eggplant)!" But most of all, she maintains a great relationship with her staff, bringing them to Italy for training, teaching them techniques, allowing them to grow so the business can run on its own.

At the top of her game and on top of the world, I ask her where she goes to eat because surely she would only eat the best. She laughs - slightly embarrassed, slightly proud - and admits, "Just in my kitchen, with my staff!"

For catering inquiries contact 9133965 or mobile 0917-8305053.