“Is the sauce for the squid in its ink Basque or Filipino? Did the Jesuits bring it to Asia?” asks chef Chele González in his hybrid dish, “a minimalist dish where two cultures come together”. It consists of squid cooked in ginger and sautéed onions, which “has a traditional base, with the sweetness of poached onions my mom’s recipe and the acidity of their signature adobong pusit (squid marinade in Tagalog) that they make with vinegar and soy.” “. It is an example of his creations of “synthesis, Filipino and Spanish fusion, gastronomic and cultural mix”. These are the proposals of the Gallery by Chele restaurant, with the hand of a brilliant professional who paved the way by introducing haute cuisine with local ingredients to the Philippines, valuing culinary sophistication from the start and valuing the activity of the archipelago’s indigenous communities.
Before conquering Filipino palates 10 years ago, José Luis Chele González (47 years old, Torrelavega) graduated in Marketing and Business Administration in Asturias, DJed electronic music in Santander, learned cooking at the Artxanda Hotel Management School in Bilbao and did an apprenticeship in large restaurants such as elBulli, Arzak, Celler de Can Roca, Mugaritz and Nerua. A turning point led him on a trip to Asia. “I wanted to redesign my life,” he says. And he ended up in the Philippines, backpack in hand. He tasted the intensity of luxurious hotel kitchens and in 2013, at the urging of an artist and architect who became his partner, Carlo Calma, he opened his personal project Gallery Vask in Manila, now called Gallery by Chele.
Chele González with her chef and Filipino partner Carlos Villaflor in a picture provided by the chef.
Gallery Vask was recognized by The World’s 50 Best as the best restaurant in the Philippines in 2016 and 2017 and was the first Spaniard to be included (2016) in the Asian list of the world’s best restaurants. Chele González has racked up a long list of awards throughout her career, although her character is not as well known to the public as other chefs. But his standing among his peers is very high and some (Basques Andoni Luis Aduriz and Josean Alija, Peruvian Virgilio Martínez, Thai chef Ton, Julien Royer from Singapore…) will be joining him at the celebrations next November. in the kitchen during the tenth anniversary of his Filipino adventure. And maybe he’s digging into sound decks, because “at some special occasion or party,” he admits, “I turn the restaurant into a kind of club, through a brand called Medium Rare.”
More information
Chele González is rekindling her musical past as a DJ in Cantabria this summer, playing two events in Santander and Suances, a coastal town where she spent her holidays surfing as a child. He is excited about returning to La Tierruca where he is reunited with his family and this year is special because he introduced them to his daughter, born of his marriage to Filipino events manager Teri Echiverri, with whom he conducted a home cooking project. (Chele’s Kitchen), focuses on Basque-style toasted cheesecake.
A photo provided by the property shows Mountain Stew at the Gallery by Chele restaurant in Manila.
The chef last year expressed memories of his country in a “nostalgic menu” titled “Reencounters,” in which he created dishes like the Filipino version of mountain stew. As with octopus adobong or oyster omelet, the crossroads of cultures is constant at Gallery by Chele, which offers six-course and 10-course tasting menus as well as a vegetarian option.
A decade ago, Gallery Vask’s launch was a multi-concept: Basque skewers, a champagne and cocktail bar, a gastronomic restaurant… All this in a food and art gallery, hence the name. The space, with enormous dimensions and a large garden terrace overlooking the skyscrapers of the business and commercial district of Bonifacio City in Manila, remains the same, with an elegant design somewhere between Nordic and tropical. But now it’s just a haute cuisine restaurant, serving about 80 people. And the menus move between reason and risk. “When you reach a point of maturity, you look for balance, thinking about pleasing guests, not fireworks to get noticed,” says the chef.
Dish called “Hybrid” with squid in the ink, in a picture provided by the restaurant.
The core of the culinary offering remains the same: “We are inspired by the Philippines in all their forms, be it what they cook in an indigenous community or a plate of street food.” And from Spanish heritage there are marinades, marinades (with a sweet touch), suckling pig (like Spanish suckling pig)… The most unique thing about the local cuisine is that it contains a lot of acids. There are soups with different herbs, kinilao (a kind of ceviche).
“When I landed in Manila, the mentality of luxury and fine dining was imported produce,” Chele González recalls. “I wanted to start from the Filipino base, from my own ingredients and from the popular style. We have worked with great finesse, traveling a thousand times across the archipelago in search of ingredients and forms of traditional cuisine. It is still stewed in bamboo, similar to a pressure cooker, and with leaf wraps. Old techniques are still used. By working with indigenous communities, we have recovered products that are almost disappearing. And from the start, we’ve adapted native applications and documented our ancestors’ recipes. Our cuisine is anthropological. We are explorers and we invite our guests to travel with us through the territories and through history. We want them to connect with nature and the rich Filipino pantry.”
This property-provided image shows a dining room at Gallery by Chele restaurant in Manila.
“I have a passion for discovery,” says the chef, who has bet on the gastronomic potential of the Philippines through the prism of his avant-garde and creative Spanish education. “We opened the door to adding value to local products, and now Filipino chefs are doing it.” He believes that the potential of the Asian archipelago needs to be further exploited: “The Philippines is the country with the second highest biodiversity in fish and seafood shellfish worldwide.”
He continues to tour the Philippine archipelago to collect ingredients, as he did ten years ago. Though logistical issues often make it difficult to get fresh produce to Manila, the chef and his assistants struggle to get what they want in the best conditions.
“Bikini Bottom,” a dish from Gallery by Chele restaurant, in an image provided by the restaurant.
The Chele universe includes, in addition to the flagship restaurant in Manila, New York-style informal eateries (DelibyChele), for which he makes sausages, pastrami, canned Filipino tuna, sourdough breads, kombuchas… He also has an ideas lab and gastronomic consultancy ( Adviche) and will expand its business by opening cafes and a new restaurant in a resort town near Manila. The Cantabrian chef has a Filipino chef, Carlos Villaflor, who is also involved in the restaurant and hotel projects, and for the new project on the island of Luzón, chef Rodrigo Osorio is brought from Cantabria, who has previously worked with him as director at Gallery research and development. You will have a vegetable garden (including Cantabrian seed tomatoes) and a farm with chickens, pigeons, goats, sheep… You have just installed a Castilian wood-burning oven and it will be called Asador Alfonso, after the name of the town where it is located. “The idea is to prepare fresh seafood appetizers and then vegetables and meat.”
“We maintain a Filipino and Spanish identity, but have now opened up to other places in Asia,” he says. “An example is the Ibérico Jjigae, a dish that blends the Korean influence of kimchi and the Spanish flavor of ham and chorizo. “The chef has to be curious,” he emphasizes.