Now open: Automat, a new Filipino restaurant by chef Stephan Duhesme

“It’s almost like you’re in someone’s house—a friend that you’ve known for years, who happens to make really good food,” describes Arlo Gregorio, who works with Duhesme as head chef at Metiz and Automat. “It just makes everyone more relaxed, more themselves.” The space is notably intimate, imparting a much more personal feel to the entire experience, especially at the counter. “We’re trying to close the distance between the people who cook the food and the people who eat the food,” he continues. “Yes, you can train a waiter, tell them how the food is made and everything, but nothing beats speaking to the person who spent time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears preparing the food. And when you ask a chef about how they made the dish, you see their eyes light up.”

“I think that should be how things are done in Manila, from now on—it should be personal,” chimes Duhesme, citing Inâto, a fellow Karrivn Plaza restaurant as an “exemplary example”. He certainly walks the talk, too. After working with an architect to create the restaurant’s layout, Duhesme and Gregorio got to work, sourcing their tiles, paint, lamps, and other elements for the space. In fact, Automat’s sign and logo are modelled after Duhesme’s handwriting, and the team even painted the restaurant themselves. “The moment you start actually putting in the work, like painting something, there’s a sense of ownership” Duhesme observes. “It’s very psychological, like the moment you pour your first drop of blood onto the pavement, something magical happens, it becomes your baby.”

See also: Bombvinos Bodega’s new lunch menu

Perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s minds is how Automat is distinct from Metiz, aesthetics aside. The most obvious difference is the menu format: the Automat experience sits somewhere between à la carte and a tasting menu, offering three courses for a fixed price and a handful of dishes to choose from for every course. Desserts are supplementary, allowing you more freedom to curate your experience. It’s an experience primed for groups, with all dishes served to share so you can taste and sample every order. “We wanted to bridge that gap between casual and fine dining,” says Duhesme, expressing his concern about the market saturation of tasting menu restaurants in Metro Manila. “We wanted it to be prix fixe, but in a way that was adapted to how we eat as Filipinos. Filipino food is generous… in the Philippines, there’s nothing worse than a host that doesn’t have a nice and varied spread. It’s almost like you’re considered a bad host.”

Their debut menu starts with two salad options: an ensaladang Pinoy with lightly boiled and raw vegetables, burnt eggplant, salted eggs, and a bright citrus peanut dressing or the ensalada Manila, their take on a Caesar salad made with grilled lettuce, smoked tuyo, egg, honey mustard, and dalandan. True to the Filipino way of eating, each course comes with a sawsawan (a term loosely used here to refer to some accoutrement, not necessarily a dip, that guests can add as they please to complement the dish), and here that takes the form of a fermented vegetable okoy, lending crunch and savouriness.

More from Tatler: Food worth fighting for: how to set up your own boodle fight, according to chefs

Automat’s second course sees the introduction of meat and heavier flavours. The first option showcases the team’s house-made kesong puti, aged for a week in banana leaves. Served with pumpkin seeds, a pungent mustasa pesto, and longganisa-style sobrasada, the luscious cheese is the perfect foil to Gregorio’s signature dense duck fat pan de sal, one of two complements for this course. Meanwhile, the sawsawan of creamy burong lentils topped with a bright and punchy shrimp kilaw played brilliantly with the tikoy palabok: a revelatory twist on the classic pancit palabok, subbing rice noodles for the rice cake, crisped on the pan. It eats like gnocchi, but topped with shrimp palabok sauce and a heaping if not delightfully absurd amount of Appenzeller cheese from Switzerland.

The use of imported ingredients is another clear difference between Automat and Metiz—whereas the latter strictly uses local ingredients, the chefs let themselves play around with global ingredients at Automat. This decision isn’t (entirely) self-indulgent. Rather, it stems from the fact that the two restaurants represent distinct but complementary narratives of Filipino cuisine. While Metiz focuses on the provincial Filipino diet, one largely dictated by vegetables and seafood with land proteins as a flavour enhancer, Automat represents the urban diet in Manila: the country’s capital, a hub where global and regional culinary influences converge to create a unique cuisine that is distinctively Manila. “We’re just jamming to the tune of Filipino cuisine, regardless of the provenance of the ingredients,” shares Duhesme.

Read more: Why is Filipino cuisine one of the richest food cultures in the world?

The tune of Filipino cuisine evokes many harmonies, but as Duhesme mentioned, at the very heart of it is generosity. Naturally, Automat’s third course comes with unlimited rice and soup, which on the day of my visit took the form of a soothing broth made with leftover lapu-lapu heads from Metiz, flavoured with tomato and ginger. 

Baby squid, butifarra, squid ink adobo, ubod purée, avocado, and croutons comprise the first of three choices for this final course—an unusual combination, to say the least. It almost feels as though someone dropped some avocado on the plate, and they just went with it. “Well, that’s kind of how it happened,” Gregorio discloses with a grin. The sweetbreads, served fried and glazed in a fermented kaldereta sauce and topped with “another metric sh*t ton of Gouda” in Duhesme’s words, is their newest addition to the mains course and has proven to be a hit. Guests can expect the menu to change frequently, with many new dishes to look forward to from the culinary duo.

See also: 11 Classic Filipino dishes everyone needs to try: Sinigang, adobo, and more

Conversely, the thrice-cooked tadjang (beef short ribs) was the very first dish they put on the menu at Automat—something they had actually intended for Metiz. “What’s nice about having two restaurants with a related purpose is that creativity bleeds through between them,” Gregorio divulges. “We were actually working on the tadjang as a possible component to a dish for Metiz. We cooked it, and when we tried it, we realised this was the right step forward for Automat.” The short ribs are glazed in a rich, lip-smacking sauce of cashews and anchovies, served with the bright and zesty calamansi kosho.

Those after something sweet to finish the meal may add on desserts, such as the fermented carrot cake with carrot caramel and spiced ice cream of cinnamon and cardamom. The second option reimagines a quintessential Filipino treat: the ice cream sandwich. Fried in butter and sugar until crisp, the pan de sal is served with two scoops of queso de bola ice cream, extra gratings of cheese, and some Auro chocolate, “because that very idea would repulse Europeans but god, it’s delicious”, Duhesme quips.

More from Tatler: Settling the score: What makes a best restaurant?

This idea of doing things the Manileño way, purists be damned, forms the very crux of Automat. Yes, there will be naysayers who reject carrot cake or the ice cream sandwich as authentic Filipino dishes, even when reclaimed in our own style. But the chefs remain unfazed—in many ways, the goal is to stimulate such discussions about the heterogeneity of the Filipino experience through food.

“We grew up eating carrot cake,” Duhesme asserts. “I mean, how is that Filipino? Yes, it’s attributed by cultural appropriation of something, but it doesn’t make it any less authentic, because we grew up eating it. So how dare you tell me that my experience has not been authentically Filipino?” Even Jollibee staples like the Champ burger, Chickenjoy, and Jolly Spaghetti are inextricable from the Filipino experience, albeit appropriated from other cultures, Duhesme argues. “These are things you just have to acknowledge as part of our cuisine, because not embracing it is not embracing our cuisine. So that’s what we’re exploring, but also acknowledging. I think, that’s the important thing. Here at Automat, we’re embracing these facets of Filipino cuisine, which is so different from what we’re doing with Metiz.”

See also: Kakanin quiz: How well do you know these 11 Filipino rice cakes?

While R&D leads Duhesme and Gregorio continue to get the ball rolling at Automat, Kevin Soliven, who is also head chef for both concepts, mans the fort downstairs at Metiz and tightens operations. “We go where we’re needed,” Duhesme explains, “right now the biggest demand is opening Automat, with regards to the full focus of creativity”. Once they’ve taught the staff everything that needs to be taught, they will refocus their efforts downstairs, and Soliven will come in and not only oversee but refine the operations at the new restaurant.

Also joining the Automat team are Metiz’s sommelier Albert Erquiza (who doubles as prep chef) and head mixologist Ron Job Sanchez. A quick glance at the menu, and you’ll notice that their cocktails are remarkably affordable—and these aren’t just simple highballs, either. The Disco Bitter Bliss, for example, is a concoction of tequila, smoked fermented Japanese cucumber, ampalaya, clarified basil and lime shrub, dalandan, and wine air. “We want to be a place where people don’t really think twice about ordering drinks,” Duhesme reveals. 

Automat is designed, in total antithesis to its namesake, to replicate the very human and personal experience of hanging out at a friend’s place with quality food. From the cosy, quirky interiors to the generous spread of food, sawsawan, the limitless bowls of rice and soup to the inexpensive cocktails, every aspect of the experience elicits a sense of comfort with an injection of playfulness that invites you to drop your guard and enjoy a great meal. “A lot of times, the best food is still had in houses and homes,” Duhesme admits. “How do you transcribe that, that feeling, that emotion, in a restaurant setting? That’s what we’re trying to portray.” 

NOW READ

10 books all foodies should read

A dining destination: Make your way to Asador Alfonso

The best tasting menus in the Philippines as featured in the Tatler Dining Guide 2024