The cool new kids in Legazpi Village

Have you been to Exit?”

A friend and I were deciding on where to meet up for one of our catch-up sessions. We had narrowed it down to having wine by a local distributor’s warehouse or the newest neighborhood bar, clandestinely located inside a restaurant. Quiet, private hideouts conducive to conversation are always appealing to me, so I found myself walking through the brightly lit sandwich-and-salad Plaza Café and into a dark, sign-less room at the back, with the music of Led Zeppelin echoing in the background. This was Exit. 

It’s casual and relaxed, both a hideaway and respite after a long day. It has most of the elements of a speakeasy — dark and hidden — but it’s not. There are no passwords and no rules; therefore you can take photos (with flash), and speak at a reasonable decibel level.

The De Riguer (P200), a simple 1920s-1930s cocktail reminiscent of the Gold Rush with the prominence of bourbon and honey — but with a tartness of grapefruit instead of lemon — is my drink of choice. The bar chow takes from the sandwiches of Plaza Café, so my friend and I split the New England Classic (P285) — turkey, cheddar cheese, apples, honey mustard on cran-apple bread — served with “frips,” a hybrid of fries and chips — which are basically chips that taste like fries that are hard to stop eating once you start. It’s simple, straightforward and clean but extremely satisfying.

The Sisters of Blind Pig

It’s not hard to guess that both Plaza Café and Exit are the sister establishments of Blind Pig. They are also the same folks behind the newly opened, much-talked-about Stockton Place (same core group but different sets of partners for each establishment) — the cool new kids, just blocks away from each other in Legazpi Village. The owners are all enterprising, well-traveled 20-something-year-olds, some of whom have spent their time in the USA, particularly New York City.

They have brought traces of the Big Apple to Manila — not so much that they are American in influence — but because in New York City, you cannot exist simply by being “pwede na;” you have to stand out to survive. New York is not always fancy but it is often hip, cool, and definitely straightforward — and these are the elements that the folks behind Blind Pig/ Plaza Café/ Exit/ Stockton Place bring with them.

Thoughtfulness and Exactness

I have only heard good things about the 30-seater Stockton Place since its opening. The restaurant is named after one of the owners’ favorite chefs, Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park (currently #5 on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants), who once worked at Campton Place on Stockton Street in San Francisco.

At the helm of the kitchen is Celine de los Angeles, who traded her jobs at a law firm and advertising agency in Los Angeles for the culinary world. She enrolled at the CCA upon moving back to Manila, worked at The Peninsula and The Goose Station, and credits chefs Rob and Sunshine Pengson and the team for teaching her technique, creativity, integrity and professionalism.

There are only 20 items on the menu, but they are very well-curated and approachable. “Much of the flavor combinations aren’t anything revolutionary (chicken and mushrooms, scallops and tomatoes, steak and potatoes) but the hope is really to have executed the dishes with thoughtfulness and exactness,” Celine shares. “Even if the flavor combinations are common, I wanted to tweak it slightly and present in a way that is fresh and unexpected, but still very approachable. Everything is made with a lot of heart, from rolling out our pasta dough every day to paying attention to even the side notes of a dish. I hope what people enjoy about our food, aside from the flavor, is realizing that a lot of thought went into every dish.”

I went one Monday night with another friend, and we were both so pleased and excited that we kept ordering until we realized we had eaten enough for four people. First of all, I’ve never had foie gras and peanut butter on my palate at the same time, but the foie gras salad (P450) proved that this was an excellent combination. I highly recommend it as a starter. Second, I’ve never appreciated tomatoes so much until I had the seared scallops (P750) served with the caramelized tomato tart. Light, melt-in-your-mouth and slightly sweet, I will admit to wiping this out before the seafood.

Now let’s get to the steak. This was what everyone had been talking about. The rib-eye steak (P450/ 100 kg; average of 600-800g) is a hunk of extremely well-seasoned and perfectly salted meat, beautifully pink inside yet crisp and crunchy, served with bordelaise sauce and fried potatoes that are incredibly addicting. It’s basically really good ol’ steak, cooked to perfection. It is extremely generous in portions, too, and definitely for sharing.  (Yup, all the hype is true.)

I try to avoid anything citrus for dessert because it never gives me the sweet fix that I crave when capping off a meal, but our server recommended the lemon parfait (P300). The silky-smooth lemon custard with vanilla emulsion topped with meringue circles hardly had the sourness of the lemon. I loved it.

I’ve known the people behind Blind Pig/ Stockton Place/ Plaza Café/ Exit for years, and to this day, they refuse to be identified, believing that this takes the attention away from the place itself. “Who owns the place is irrelevant to the experience of somebody that eats there,” one of them has told me. And this is true — an owner’s name can either supersede or underwhelm a place even before a diner has had a chance to visit. Indeed, theirs have become establishments that people have been going to — and most importantly, returning to — because they are quintessentially good. Kudos.

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Stockton Place is located at 227 Salcedo St., Legazpi Village, Makati. For reservations, call (0917) 856-1419, email reservations@stocktonplace.com or visit www.stocktonplace.com.

Plaza Café and Exit are located at the ground floor of Corinthian Plaza, 121 Paseo de Roxas, (next to AIM and Greenbelt 1), Legazpi Village, Makati. For reservations, call 551-1283, email cables@plazacafe.ph or visit www.plazacafe.ph

You can reach me at http://www.twitter.com/cheryltiu or email me at inbetweendeadlines@gmail.com .