What happens when three chef friends get together in a kitchen? A dinner like Serai x Aya, where dishes burst with flavor that are as wild and fun as they are.
Tasting menus are having a moment, fueled by a fresh batch of freethinking chefs reshaping the Manila culinary scene. Restaurants and pop-ups across the city are serving up inventive and thoughtful degustations, and foodies are eating it up.
Ayà Manila, the très chic Makati resto bar led by Chefs Kevin “Nav” Navoa and Thirdy Dolatre, hops on the bandwagon via its Inayá Series. They are putting the spotlight on guest chefs who share their clever food philosophy. For their opening salvo, they turned to Fil-Aussie chef, Ross Magnaye, whose food-over-fire approach to heritage cuisine made Serai one of Melbourne’s hottest dining spots.
The Serai x Ayà dinner is the fourth time that Dolatre, Magnaye, and Navoa have collaborated on a menu, after successful forays in Melbourne, Singapore, and Bali.
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“At this point, cooking together is our excuse to see each other. After doing this a few times outside Manila, it made sense to finally do it back home,” says Navoa, who first met Magnaye in 2016 and became fast friends. Serendipitously, Magnaye was en route to visit family in Davao, so it was a quick detour to Manila for a bit of kitchen sorcery.
“What made this fourth collaboration particularly special is that Ross was finally coming home, and we had the honor of hosting him,” shares Dolatre. In matching Serai x Ayà shirts and shorts (save for Nav, who seemingly missed the memo that day), the three of them together was a vibe. “We’ve become more attuned to each other’s styles and flavor profiles. I think this menu reflects that,” he adds.
Over in Melbourne, Magnaye’s food at Serai is making waves for its fusion of Filipino flavors with Australian ingredients and seasonal produce. Rooted in his native heritage, he complements his signature food-over-fire technique with innovative food ideas, to fill what Time Out Melbourne called a “Philippine-sized gap” in the Melbourne dining scene.
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The magazine has since named Serai as “Restaurant of the Year” and “Best Casual Dining Venue” in 2022, and included them in this year’s list of “50 Best Restaurants in Melbourne.” It has also received a prestigious One Hat—Australia’s version of the Michelin star, handed out by Good Food Australia—in 2022 and 2023, making it a key player in pushing Filipino cuisine Down Under.
With a flurry of ideas in his back pocket, Magnaye hied off to Manila, and into Ayà’s kitchens to do some cooking with his equally inventive chef buddies. He took inspiration from some Serai classics, juxtaposing them against the local food scene.
Take the case of the Cabbage “Tocino“ course—“that’s really a vegan dish, but here, we used some beef stock to give it meatiness,” he notes. A rockstar dish that crossed borders was the Seared Kangaroo “Kilawin” and Wood-roast Bone Marrow on Toast, but the Manila edit used local Yellowfin Tuna tossed in Pares Jus, with a slice of Pan de Kalinga which was the perfect bed to slather the luscious bone marrow, roasted with smoked latik. As a final flourish, any marrow remnants were torched on the bone, which Magnaye washes down with a shot of lambanog…straight into your mouth! It was giving Flintstones, but in way chicer environs!
The McScallop “Snacks” course took a trip to Asia by way of Red Horse beer used in the batter enveloping succulent Hokkaido scallops. Nestled in a bonete bun, with a touch of taba ng talangka aioli, no slider that there is, or was, is ever likely to pass muster!
To be honest, the Serai x Ayà tasting menu made it really difficult to pick a favorite. Each course was a culinary experience highlighting Filipino cuisine’s depth and diversity. The first four courses, two of which are the McScallop, and the Tuna Pares – Bone Marrow combo, were big-flavored small bites that surely whet the appetite.
It was when the set of Salu-Salo dishes came to the table that the three chefs brought out the big guns. As a big fan of pulpo (and will order it mostly anywhere that it is on the menu), the Pugita did not disappoint. The octopus was tender, perfectly seared a la plancha and was well-complemented by the smoky Calumpit longganiza sauce.
The steak course, cooked over wood fire, was named Piyanggang, after the sauce it is marinated in, which is a mix of various aromatics mixed in with ground burnt coconut, giving it a distinct dark color and deep savory notes. The dish was a play of spicy, tangy, sweet with pineapple palapa, and the green garlic yogurt. “This was the first time for me to work with these ingredients, so it was interesting to see how it would work out,” shared Dolatre.
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The dish that, hands down, may have caught everyone off guard was the Cabbage “Tocino,” where the glaze stole the show, caramelized into the tender veg by the woodfire it was cooked over.
With a menu like this, Ayà’s charming sommelier Ian Santos came prepared. His carefully selected bottles of vino and bubbly nicely balanced out the bold flavors of each course. His choice of a natural French red, cheekily named ‘Piak,’ was his little wink to Serai, which serves natural wines on their menu. It was interesting that the chefs and Santos chose to eschew the usual sweet wine in favor of a booze-forward Coconut Negroni (with a bit of lambanog) to go with dessert.
Speaking of dessert, this one was just bonkers. In a good way. Imagine Maja Blanca straight out of the oven, draped with a silky kesilyo and miso mornay sauce. For that play of hot and cold, a quenelle of smoked butter ice cream was laid on top. “We just dropped the piece of coal into the ice cream to give it that hint of smoke,” Magnaye enthuses. As with all good things, it didn’t end there, evidenced by the generous spoonful of Kaluga caviar to garnish. Yes, the temptation was there to pick up the bowl and lick every last bit, but, alas, politeness prevailed.
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As Chefs Ross Magnaye, Thirdy Dolatre, and Nav Navoa joined the table, with drinks in hand, it was clear why this culinary “throuple,” figuratively speaking, works. The former is akin to the big man on campus whose personality mimics the big flavors he puts on the plate. The latter two are just as ebullient in their epicurean offerings but serve it up with more of a quiet confidence. Or it may just appear that way.
It could also be that they are all so keenly attuned to each other’s styles that delicious is really the only road they are traveling on. Basing it on the Serai x Ayà collaboration, however Dolatre and Navoa choose to play out the rest of their Inayà series, whoever sits at a table at Ayà will have chosen well to accept.
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