It seems odd that, for a restaurant owner, Davide Oldani espouses eating less. It means you’re eating healthy, he said. What’s important for him is that food is tasty and of high quality.

 

Oldani was in town to introduce his restaurant named Foo’d (foo-do), which opened last month at Shangri-La at the Fort. Eric Dee of Foodee Global Concepts flew Oldani to Manila.

 

Like many chefs today, Oldani has expanded his business from his original Ristorante D’O located in his hometown of Cornaredo near Milan. He has opened Foo’d in Singapore, and Davide Oldani Café at the Milan airport.

 

Ristorante D’O has earned a Michelin star. The Italian government named Oldani as Ambassador to the Expo 2015. Yet it is his unusual restaurant business model that earned him an invitation to speak at the World Business Forum in Milan. A case study of his restaurant ventures has made it to the Harvard Business School, too.

 

His business model is noted not only for the low prices of his food but also the lean number of his staff. Many of today’s high-end restaurants hire more people than customers. It’s been reported that Oldani’s chefs wait at tables on certain days, which makes sense because chefs can better describe the menu to inquisitive diners.

 

The concept of high-quality but affordable food is termed Cocina Pop. At Foo’d Manila, it means a three-course menu costs only P800.

 

Oldani discussed the dishes. First came Faux Egg, the supposed yolk made of orange juice shaped into a sphere on top of cauliflower done two ways—as creamy sauce (velouté), and chopped finely to mimic tabouleh, the Middle Eastern salad.

 

Next was Surf and Turf—tender beef cheek and prawns in a rich sauce with fish roe to bring in the salty contrast.

 

 

Added course

 

Guests that evening, however, had an added course because Oldani wanted everyone to taste the dish he had demonstrated before dinner commenced. It was a pasta fregola, shaped like rounded rice grains.

 

The pasta is from Sardinia, three different batches roasted differently, then cooked in a saffron sauce enriched with an Italian cheese, the Grana Padano that is used in many of Oldani’s creations. It reminded one of risotto.

 

For an enlightened chef, it is important to know the produce, its history, the traditional way it is used in cooking. To that, Oldani adds seasonality, knowing when a product is at its prime. It is one of the considerations when he creates a dish, he says.

 

The other is that there will be contrast and balance on the plate and on the palate. Every spoonful should have the sweet, salty, crunchy, soft, etc.

 

But because dining should be a well-rounded experience, design is important as well—the layout of the place, the furniture and lights, the containers and utensils.

 

Again, like Oldani’s reasonable pricing, practicality in design is also vital, the furniture to give comfort and the container to contribute to the value and quality of the dish.

 

 

Oldani had apprenticed with some of the best chefs in Europe—Gualtero Marchesi, Albert Roux, Alain Ducasse and Pierre Herme. Asked whether he was like his mentor, Marchesi, who returned his three Michelin stars, (the first Italian chef to be awarded), because the Michelin as a French company did not do justice to Italian chefs, Oldani said that a Michelin star is very important to him.

 

Though he looked tired from the long trip, he stayed up to check the kitchen, talk with journalists and greet guests. “I love my job,” he declared. “I do it with my heart. I still study every day.”

 

Because he also writes a sports column, he was asked if he’s likewise into sports. What interests him really, he said, is wellness.

 

As the interview ended, he surprisingly remarked his food is like Filipino cooking in its sweetness. Oldani said he likes sweetness in dishes.

 

Well, dessert sweetness was also waiting to end the meal—white coffee tiramisu which had coffee mousse, dark chocolate hiding underneath a white chocolate covering and a stick of dehydrated meringue.

 

But it wasn’t as sweet the way we like our dessert to be.

 

Foo’d, Shangri-La at the Fort, 30th St. and 5th Ave., Fort Bonifacio, Taguig

 

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