Along the Tagaytay highway, a large teal-colored building adorned with quaint balusters beckons.
Balay Dako (“big house” in Ilonggo) is becoming a dining destination, the newest restaurant of chef Antonio “Tonyboy” Escalante.
Unlike his eponymous restaurant, Antonio’s Tagaytay, which caters to the who’s who, Balay Dako has been attracting a wider clientele.
“Unlimited garlic rice,” scrawled on the billboard, heralded opening day. The place was packed. Escalante wanted a share of the market of Filipino restaurants by the ridge that offered more familiar home-cooked meals than innovative cuisine.
“My guests are not yuppies who eat Pinoy fusion,” he says. “They come from Cavite and Batangas. They want the real thing… Adobo with foie gras, for instance, has no place at Balay Dako.”
Balay Dako is the third restaurant of the Antonio Group of Companies after the award-winning Antonio’s in Barangay Neogan, Tagaytay, Breakfast at Antonio’s and Antonio’s Grill.
Accustomed to the resplendence of Negrense hospitality, Escalante recalls traveling to two towns outside his family’s native Cadiz just to gather hibiscus flowers for a party in his grandfather’s house called “Balay Dako.” The grandchildren would then line up the staircase and give hibiscus garlands to guests.
His grandfather, Manuel Escalante, loved to hold parties.
“Desserts would be prepared three days before the party,” recalls Tonyboy. “Drinks were served in the trolley before the bar became fashionable in the home. I still prefer the trolley for drinks.”
For Balay Dako, he closed down Antonio’s Grill and leased the adjoining property. He tapped architect Kathleen Henares to design a contemporary structure. The three-level house follows the layout of the Escalante ancestral home.
The silong or basement has the function rooms that overlook Taal Lake. As in the houses of old, the second floor has the living room and main dining area.
The top floor, a breakfast area by day and a bar at night, is an eclectic mix of industrial finishes and patterned tiles inspired by prewar patterns. Guests can chill at The Terraza which opens to the view of the lake and sky.
Escalante puts his chefs on the frontline: Joselito Santiago was a provincial bus driver with a gift for cooking; and Ricky Sison was a butcher of the now-defunct Mandarin hotel for 15 years.
Ilonggo cuisine
One of Balay Dako’s specialties is the Ilonggo chicken inasal, grilled chicken with crispy skin and extra luscious meat with a hint of annatto.
The menu includes items from the old Antonio’s Grill such as Ilonggo comfort food, kadyos, a meal of pigeon peas, jackfruit and tender pork belly, spiked with a souring agent called batuan.
The ginataang monggo with flaked tinapa is a bestseller. The batchoy, an Ilonggo staple, is made from scratch with soup stock boiled for hours and fresh noodles and pork innards. The piyaya, following an old recipe from Silay, Negros Occidental, is a delicate crispy flatbread with melted muscovado sugar filling.
There are familiar favorites. Chef Sison’s version of the bistek Tagalog has the subtle balance of soy-sauce saltiness and calamansi zing.
The crispy pata, lechon kawali and barbecue are brined for days so that the meat still looks healthy pink and not brown. The chicken and pork adobo is marinated for hours, pan fried and boiled to retain its chewy texture. The adobong pitaw or cultured squab is perfectly golden brown and crisp, its moist meat and robust flavors are derived from the briny solution of souring agents and spices.
An iconic Tagaytay dish, the bulalo or beef shank and marrow, is cooked for half a day until the fat completely dissolves into the soup. The outcome is a clear soup with no tallow or gruet even after several hours.
Unlike the local tradition of dunking and braising to make stewed kambing, Balay Dako’s version uses the classic technique. The meat is marinated overnight, pan-fried, and braised in tomato sauce. It is then cooked in slow moist heat to preserve the succulence.
The laing, tofu wrapped in taro leaves, is cooked the traditional way, from the removal of the midrib of the leaves to the long hours of simmering. The shredded water spinach (kangkong) salad is topped with shrimps and dressed with a sweet sour mixture of vinegar, sugar, garlic, calamansi and chili.
The dishes can be accompanied with purée pickle relish, blackened onions and baked chicharon.
The desserts include papaya sago, satin-soft maja blanca, puffy ensaymada with a buttery top, and turon with purple yam and custard, wrapped in sweet sticky rice.
“You bring your family here. This is what they look for,” says Escalante, who credits his collaborators such as Jill Sandique, the celebrity chef-baker who shared the recipe for the perfect pie crust of the buko pie.
Another Tagaytay signature, the buko pie is topped by a light, flaky crust and filled with slices of coconut meat, unlike the popular version of an extended filling.
Lydia de Roca, co-founder of the eponymous lechon chain, also helped out in putting up the lechon carving station for the weekend brunch.
Ike Miranda concocted Balay Dako’s coffee blends.
Although Escalante uses quality ingredients such as imported meats, the prices are affordable. You can have pork barbecue for P60 and chicken liver for P70. A set menu of viands for 10 people costs P5,400-P5,600. Six people with hefty appetites can have bulalo for P840; or the pinakbet na kanin at crispy pata (fried rice with vegetables and deep-fried pork leg) for P850. The sizzling bulalo, served like a steak on a cast-iron plate, is P940.
Escalante believes that he’s not competing with the other restaurants: “I’m a collaborator. If I were in Manila, I would not have made it. I wanted to challenge myself.”
Getting started
There’s the oft-repeated story of Escalante who dropped out of medical school and became a flight attendant for Philippine Airlines. He pursued his passion for cooking by studying at Regency Park Institute of Tafe in Adelaide, Australia.
He worked at the now-defunct Mandarin Manila under the tutelage of executive chef Norbert Gandler.
In the early 2000s, Escalante and his family moved to the still idyllic Tagaytay. He would cook dinners for a group of 10 under a tent in his place in Neogan. The dinners evolved into what is now Antonio’s, which opened in November 2002.
When Inquirer Lifestyle featured its refined continental cuisine and charming ambience then, Escalante recalled his phone kept ringing. In two months, the restaurant doubled its seating capacity.
In 2013, he set up Breakfast at Antonio’s, leasing the home of a former Cabinet member.
Good employer
Citations have been the rewards of his hard work. When Escalante was named Chef of the Year in 2014 by Philippine Tatler’s Best Restaurant Guide, he didn’t show up at the ceremony. “I like hosting, but not going to parties,” he admits. “Besides, I don’t have a suit. Probinsiyano ako.”
Last year was good to him. Antonio’s Restaurant was no. 48 in San Pellegrino’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.
In the past five years, it has been in the Miele Guide to Asia’s Top 20 restaurants. Escalante is the only Filipino chef on both lists.
Escalante was also a finalist in Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Apparently, Escalante has also been a good employer. Some old-time staffers have taken lucrative jobs in cruise ships, only to come back to work with him. To make them stay, he gives jobs to both the husband and wife so that they become a two-income family.
Escalante says he is strict but he always explains the reason things should be done properly: “You set a standard and there are no shortcuts.”
He is also concerned about the safety of his employees. When the parking lot filled up with his employees’ motorcycles, he gave a memo that management would not pay for their medical bills if they drove without a helmet.
Asked what keeps him going despite the challenges, Escalante replies: “How can you do more for your people? The business essence is to uplift their lives.”
He shares stories of employees, like the former tricycle driver who now runs Breakfast at Antonio’s. Some staffers have also saved up enough to build their own homes.
Escalante has turned down offers to open more restaurants and get into partnership. “At the end of the day, how much do I really need? You don’t have to kill yourself,” he says. “I’ve been very blessed.”
Balay Dako, Tagaytay-Nasugbu Highway, Tagaytay City; tel. (046) 4834847
