Photo: The Fatted Calf's Official FB Page
Cover Photo: The Fatted Calf's Official FB Page

Chefs Jayjay and Rhea Sycip’s farmhouse restaurant in Silang, Cavite is proof that good things happen to good people.

It has not been easy, but then again the past couple of years have been tough on everyone. There were times when The Fatted Calf’s husband and wife tandem Jayjay and Rhea Sycip toyed with the idea of permanently shutting down their dream restaurant, something that took almost a decade to come to fruition. However, something would always happen to turn the odds in their favour and would encourage them to carry on.

Lucky for us, since the inspired family-style dishes and world-class pastries coming out of their kitchen is truly worth the trek from the city. The house and property itself was something they discovered during one of their “hole-in-the-wall” excursions seeking out hidden gems. Chef Jayjay shared that was their favourite activity when they were still dating, and it was when they were seeking out the neighbouring Vietnamese restaurant that they first discovered the farmhouse back in 2007. “We were lost and making a U-turn when I saw the ‘for rent’ sign,” added chef Rhea, “and I remember asking Jayjay: ‘What if?’”

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The Fatted Calf Restaurant | Photo Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Above Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe

As their love story progressed, so did their careers in the hospitality industry. However, the allure of the farmhouse in Silang lingered, and fate kept it waiting and available. Finally, the lease contract was signed on their Silang farmhouse at the end of 2017 when both were ready to ease out of their hotelier posts. The house itself was tailor-made for their requirements with the high ceiling in the main room, and an expansive kitchen for both Jayjay’s hot dishes and Rhea’s pastries that she also still offers under her established Flour Pot Manila brand. “With every paycheck, we slowly pieced the restaurant together,” Rhea narrates. Plates and bowls purchased during a trip to Thailand adorn the wall in the main dining room, the rope bulb hanging from the ceiling is a flea market find.

A beautiful back story, no doubt, but it is not the foundation supporting this endeavour. At the end of the day, it is about the food. The homey dishes here are the kind that gets embedded into memory, the type that you will crave for only hours after eating it. Chef Jayjay has been prodded by chef friends to make a tasting menu, but he insists that it is not their style. Their monicker itself is derived from [Christian] scripture when the prodigal son returns into the fold and the father ordered that “the fatted calf” be slaughtered for the feast. “This is how we eat,” Jayjay explains. “Our families would come and we would have one long table, then more would arrive and we would just keep adding tables and chairs.”

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'gallery right' 'gallery right'
Photo 1 of 3 Photo: The Fatted Calf Official Instagram Page
Photo 2 of 3 Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Photo 3 of 3 Photo: The Fatted Calf Official Instagram Page

A meal here usually starts with their popular chicken liver pate, from free-range chickens sourced from a nearby farm where they are grown until the ripe age of 45 to 60 days to reach their optimal weight. The livers themselves are devoid of the usual metallic flavour, made even sweeter by chef Jayjay substituting brandy with bourbon. To counter the richness, a bite of pickled pepenitos adds just the right tang. These tiny cucumber cousins are grown wild around the property and pickled simply with palm vinegar and sea salt.

These should be followed by a bowl of salad, or two, since it is a disservice to one’s self not to enjoy the area’s fresh bounty. The off-the-menu fruit and nuts salad is vegan and a “flex” of the Fatted Calf’s ability to source the best ingredients from their many suppliers that have become friends and allies during these times. Just that bowl of salad alone contains greens from four different farms, pili nuts from Sorsogon, and cashew that Rhea’s mom sends over from Palawan. The pineapples literally came from next door.

Their red snapper is from a trader in Mindoro that chef Rhea found on Facebook Marketplace and has discovered the platform to be a great source of fresh produce. The fillet is simply pan-seared and served with edamame, chorizo, and charred leeks on a bed of corn puree to address the demand for more seafood on the menu.

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Sriracha Fried Chicken Sandwich  | Photo Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Above Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
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Photo: The Fatted Calf's Official FB Page
Above Photo: The Fatted Calf's Official FB Page

They like to make things here from scratch. The Sriracha fried chicken sandwich’s sauce used to be made in-house utilising the birds-eye chilis they grow out front, but most of their diners find it too spicy. Now, the kitchen uses commercial sriracha, but chef Jayjay is a chili-head and likes to have his homemade sauce on hand. He made us try it and true enough it was delicious—hot, but with a good balance of tang and flavour. 

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Roasted Leg of Beef | Photo Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Above Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
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Strawberry Glazed Donuts | Photo Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Above Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe

Their 10-hour roasted leg of beef is sourced from a local butcher, freshly slaughtered just that morning. An hour after, Jayjay and his staff are there to pick up their choice female rumps that will be rubbed simply in their homemade wholegrain mustard, then cooked look and slow. What you get is the pristine flavour of beef akin to bulalo, with the meat and tendon attached to the bone benefiting most from this cooking style. The baby carrots and potatoes, luxuriating at the bottom of the pan as the meat cooks, absorb all that flavour.

After an outstanding meal, what is most stunning about The Fatted Calf is that the sweet ending is not merely an afterthought. During the first lockdown, chef Jayjay shares, what got them through those tough times were chef Rhea’s strawberry glazed doughnuts. “It was just me and Rhea in the kitchen then, and we were pounding out 500 doughnuts a week,” he says, sometimes having to pay off the guards at the checkpoint (with doughnuts, of course) between Silang and Tagaytay as their doughnuts exchanged hands right at the boundary. Rhea’s tres leches and strawberry shortcake are deserving of their cult following, and Tableya’s chocolate buttercream is airy and dream-like with the rich flavours of Davao’s Sikwate chocolate.

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The Fatted Calf Team | Photo Jaclyn Clemente Koppe
Above Photo: Jaclyn Clemente Koppe

Our meal at Fatted Calf fell on the day after another ECQ was announced in Metro Manila. This means it is business as usual in Silang, if not for the 80 per cent of their reservations coming from the capital that had to cancel. Still, the vibe in the dining room was upbeat and calm, the hotel-trained staff chirpy and efficient (“and loyal,” chef Jayjay shared, as they decided to stay put after the second lockdown and waited for things to open up again). The Sycips have been through volcano eruptions and the worst pandemic of our lifetime, but they draw strength from the support of their regulars that have become family, and a sense of responsibility toward their staff and community to keep the supply chain going.

Sometimes, as fate would have it, the good guys win.

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