Modern, Pinoy... Sarap!

You have a visitor who wants to sample Philippine cuisine. You don’t want to take the visitor to an eat-all-you-can buffet, or to a hotel that offers everything in the buffet but at quadruple the price. You’re tired of nipa hut ambience and rondallas serenading diners. Where to go?

Try Sentro 1771, the newest baby of restaurateur Ricky Gutierrez. You remember Ricky from his roots in Malate, where he started Chateau 1771 fourteen years ago at the ground floor of an old building owned by his family. The building was restored and converted into a hotel, which remains a favorite among foreigners. And Chateau became a hit, especially with the opening of the Glass House–literally, an annex of the restaurant made of steel and reinforced glass. From the Glass House, which was non-smoking, you could watch the rain splatter on the roof and look out at the lovely garden. I spent many evenings there, digging into delectable coffee pie and sipping the wonderful house blend.

Chateau became Portico, offering fusion cuisine that gave us tofu in Japanese-style sweet sauce as appetizer, and other combinations of Philippine and Asian flavors. Coffee pie remained on the menu, a sinful finish to a meal of braised pork trotters or the healthier pasta offerings. Chateau, meanwhile, moved to Ortigas Center in Pasig.

Alas, Portico is now closed for lunch (only for a few months, Ricky promises, and it’s still there for dinner) while the Glass House is on a five-year lease to a multinational coffee chain.

But patrons of 1771 (the street number of the building in Malate) have a new place to try out. At the heart of the Ayala commercial district are several new buildings that make up Greenbelt 3. The building along Makati Avenue houses the basement parking lot. On the second floor of this building, right in the middle, is Sentro 1771.

The spot overlooks the Greenbelt aviary and chapel, and those who prefer to dine al fresco won’t suspect that they’re right smack in the middle of a concrete jungle–the highest concentration of high-rises in the Philippines. Trees are everywhere and the sounds of the city are muted.

Sentro 1771 had its soft opening last July and will be in full operation in October. Many of the store spaces in the building are still unoccupied. On a muggy Wednesday, however, Sentro was packed, all the way to the al fresco dining area.

Ricky the businessman is obviously pleased that just by word of mouth Sentro has become a hit in a district saturated with dining areas. No, he wasn’t into feng shui when he picked the middle spot in the building for his bistro. He just liked the location and the scenery. As in the other bistros of the Chateau chain, he himself designed the innovative, native-inspired interiors, with a little help from friends.

The menu was developed by his long-time partner, Vicky Rose Reyes Pacheco. That’s right, that’s the Reyes clan behind the restaurants that started with Aristocrat, now a landmark of affordable Philippine cuisine on Roxas Boulevard. Vicky Rose, however, wanted to get out of the shadow of the family and give full rein to her culinary creativity. Trained in classic French cooking in Les Roches and Lausanne in Switzerland, she created a French-inspired menu for Chateau 1771, then moved on to fusion with Portico.

"Now she has come full circle, creating modern Filipino cuisine," Ricky says.

That’s how he describes Sentro’s gustatory offering: a modern take on traditional Filipino favorites. With his previous projects, Ricky says, 65 percent of the ingredients were imported. For Sentro, 65 percent of all the offerings are sourced locally. What remains on the import list? Only items that have no local counterparts, or are far superior to their local counterparts, such as certain types of cheeses and other dairy products, oils and beef.

"I can’t compromise quality," Ricky tells me. "For good food, you have to invest in the best ingredients." He describes Sentro fare as "vivid and ambitious... exciting."

The results are tantalizing versions of Philippine home cooking. For starters, we had sizzling tofu–a healthy version of sisig. Then we had glass noodles or sotanghon, stir-fried quickly with fresh spinach. This was followed by a specialty of the house: corned beef sinigang. That’s corned beef short ribs and camto with mixed vegetables in sour broth, served in a clay pot. Of course there was rice– Sentro’s version of fried rice.

Among their biggest hits are the seafood offerings. We had "Hitong Hapon", catfish fillets glazed with Japanese ponzu sauce, and "Rated: GG" which–you guessed it–are fillets of galunggong or scad, fried in garlic oil and topped with crispy browned garlic. Yummy! They also have different takes on tilapia and of course there’s bangus belly.

For the carnivores, Sentro naturally has its own version of adobo, smothered with garlic, and a boneless version of crispy pata or pork trotter. There’s honey garlic pork spareribs, and for chicken, try the crispy roast stuffed with lemon grass and garlic, or the barbeque-flavored grilled chicken.

Sago’t gulaman is bottomless. If you have tummy room to explore other beverages, you can try the pomelo juice, or Sentro’s specialty drink: a combination of orange, pineapple, Sprite and a splash of lambanog or native coconut wine, served with a lot of ice.

Aware that Italian cuisine has become familiar among Filipinos, Sentro is also offering pasta– vegetable lasagna and seafood pasta –as well as three types of pizza: all meat with chorizo, seafood with a hint of anchovy, and pesto with kesong puti or native cheese for vegetarians.

But the most delightful part of the meal for me was the dessert of–what else?–coffee pie! There are other delectable items for the sweet tooth: lemon meringue torte and coffee bean sans rival, among others. But the coffee pie is one item they retained from the 1771 chain: coffee filling topped with cream cheese and toffee sauce, on a crust of chocolates and cashew. For the desserts alone I’ll keep going back to Sentro 1771.