Cibo: 14 years of Italian love

MANILA, Philippines - Restaurateur and chef Gaita Fores fell in love with Italy in New York. She was working for the rep office of the fashion house Valentino and was surrounded by Italian friends, colleagues and restaurants, living and breathing Italian fashion, and she inevitably became enamored of everything Italian.

Most of all, she fell in love with Italian cuisine.

This month, that love turns 14 by way of her popular Italian restaurant Cibo, which has 10 branches all over Metro Manila. To celebrate 14 years — which began in a small space at Glorietta 3 — Cibo (“Food” in Italian) and Citibank are partnering up and giving diners very generous offers. On the workweeks of Aug. 22 to 26 and Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, Citibank cardholders get 14 percent off on their bill when using their card for a minimum purchase of P1,400. The long-term offer of Cibo and Citibank, which is until July 2012, is that diners get a P200 gift certificate for a minimum check of P1,500 when diners use their Citibank card.

Italy by way of Manila: Cibo owner and chef Gaita Fores (right) and Bea Tan, Cards Business director for Citibank Philippines. In its 14th year, Cibo partners with Citibank for very generous offers. On the workweeks of Aug. 22 to 26 and Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, Citibank cardholders get 14 percent off on their bill when using their card for a minimum purchase of P1,400. The long-term offer of Cibo and Citibank, which is until July 2012, is a P200 gift certificate for a minimum check of P1,500 when diners use their Citibank card.

 “This is a partnership that our cardholders have been waiting for. I personally have been waiting with this partnership for years,” says Bea Tan, Cards Business director for Citibank Philippines. “We think Cibo is a restaurant that our cardholders are going to be very excited about. What I’ve noticed about Cibo is that it doesn’t cater to only a particular age group. It’s popular with the young —my son loves it here — and with adults.”

That Cibo’s big 14 percent discount is happening on two workweeks of August tells you something of its standing with diners. The restaurant is an everyday destination rather than a weekend meal. It’s very popular with office people because its quality is consistent in all the branches, it’s quick, and it’s authentic Italian food.

Spinaci Zola or spinach and gorgonzola put Cibo in people’s consciousness when it opened 14 years ago. Cibo owner Gaita Fores says, “Parents have come up to me and said they love Cibo because it’s the only place where they can get their kids to eat spinach.”

Gaita opened Cibo 14 years ago, 10 years after she came back to Manila from Italy, where she lived and learned Italian cooking. “I came back from Italy in 1986 and began doing small catering jobs. The catering business didn’t even have a name, it was just me. I would cook for 10 to 15 people until it got bigger and I would do weddings. It took me 10 years to make the decision to open a restaurant. When you open one, it’s almost like getting married. Even if you feel sick the next morning you have to get up, go to the market and make sure it’s open at the time it’s supposed to open. So that decade was a process for me to really understand the kind of discipline and commitment needed to be in the restaurant business.”

In Italy, Gaita got her chops in Florence, a city famous for two things — art and food — and Gaita felt right at home. She studied with a Florentine woman who taught cooking in her house in the mornings and in the afternoons she would take her students to the market.

“At first I was living with a family just outside the city. They had a villa with several small bedrooms (I suppose they were the servants quarters in the old times) that they rented out to students. The family always included me in their dinner, so at night I would look over the cook’s shoulder as she cooked. I spent two and a half months with them until I met more people who were my age.” Then she moved to the city near Piazza Sta. Croche, sharing an apartment with a friend who was working for Ferragamo.

Most weekends Gaita would rent a car and drive to other places — to Genova where she learned to make pesto the old fashioned way, in restaurants where she would ask to be shown the kitchen or talk to the waiters and cooks. “The Italians were very generous about their food knowledge. My weekends were always like that. I’d take my camera and go around, take my picture alone. My friends and I, we were all in our mid 20s and we were so gutsy.”

Gaita adds, “It’s an easy cuisine to prepare. If I had chosen France to study, I don’t think I could replicate the food here in Manila. It’s too complicated.”

Porscuitto di Parma is Parma ham, tomatoes, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses

So when she opened Cibo 14 years ago, the challenge was not merely that Filipinos were used to Italian food via the American taste (which was mostly southern Italy), but also sourcing ingredients. It was a time when herbs were not so readily available and our tomatoes were too sour (“because our soil is really acidic, so they don’t get really ripe and sweet the way Italy’s do”).

“When I opened Cibo I really felt that I had to be a purist about it. Most Filipinos’ concept of Italian food was the usual red sauce, spaghetti and meatballs. In the beginning, we had clientele that would tell us our pasta was ‘not cooked yet, it’s a little bit raw.’ So I had to be very diplomatic when explaining al dente, and that Italians like to eat it that way. Or how little the sauce was in the Bolognese and I would say the Italians equally celebrate the flavor of the pasta itself and its sauce. It took a while, I think, for people to understand. But now the world is so small, people travel so much and everybody knows what authentic Italian food is.”

The funny thing about Cibo is that while the menu is extensive (it also has rice dishes), diners (myself included) have a tendency to stick to their favorites, which is both amusing and frustrating for Gaita.

Bestsellers include the Spinaci Zola (spinach gorgonzola), which for me put Cibo on my list of favorite restaurants, Tagliata di Manzo (roasted beef tenderloin with garlic and rosemary focacia), Rigatoni all Alfonso (shrimps, chives, stewed tomatoes, cream and chili peppers on rigatoni pasta), and Poscuito di Parma (tomato, mozzarella, parma ham, arugula and parmesan cheese), and the tiramisu which comes with crunchy wafer instead of the classic soft one we’re used to. . Cibo was also the first to offer white and red grape shake.

Manzo Tagliata or tenderloin roast, sliced focaccia, garlic and rosemary

“You know, the Italian temperament is very much like ours, their lives revolve around the dining table and their mothers,” says Gaita.

And Cibo brings this to our table. All the time.

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Cibo is located at Glorietta 4, Shangri-La Edsa Plaza Mall, Alabang Town Center, Power Plant Mall, Promenade at Greenhills, Gateway Araneta Center, TriNoma Mall, Greenbelt 5, and Eastwood City Mall.