Reuniting after seven years, illustrious chefs Margarita Forés and Vicky Cheng offered their unfiltered friendship on plates

The number one dinner rule it seems this August so far is to simply dine out with flair. Whether it’s on the 66th floor of a Bonifacio Global City high rise or at a mansion in Salcedo Village hiding an architectural rarity, decorated chefs from all over descended into the capital recently to offer an unexpectedly strong showcase of cuisine that captured the spirit of the season.

And no, we’re not talking about Ghost Month vibes or Buwan ng Wika significance (at least not on F&B Report)—though the language of food isn’t lost on the chefs here.

So what is the point of the likes of Margarita Forés and Vea chef Vicky Cheng reuniting after seven years for a special one-off collaboration in Manila? A regal, grand, and venerable homecoming of sorts.

Vicky Cheng and Margarita Forés drawn together

For Forés and Cheng whose first time teaming up happened in 2017, their most recent collaboration comes on the heels of Hong Kong Tourism Board’s exciting campaign: the annual Wine & Dine Festival in October that positions Hong Kong as a premier capital for gastronomy in Asia.

Seven years is a long time for the celebrated chefs to do this again (not counting the eight-hands Asian Culinary Exchange dinner in 2018, of course) but that extended pause has shown that both nothing and everything has changed.

Forés and Cheng have evolved as chefs. And so did their ideas and approaches to food. And yet nothing has also changed in their friendship, which has stood the test of time. Their relationship towards food also hasn’t been left behind when the pair gleefully express their excitement over discoveries (and rediscoveries) atop Penthouse No. 66 at Grand Hyatt Manila.

Seven years is a long time for the celebrated chefs to do this again but that extended pause has shown that both nothing and everything has changed. Forés and Cheng have evolved as chefs. And so did their ideas and approaches to food. And yet nothing has also changed in their friendship, which has stood the test of time.

“Chef Margarita was generous enough to find me my favorite Filipino ingredient, kamias,” confesses Cheng. “We’re gonna preserve it and bring it back to Hong Kong.”

So it’s remarkable to note that this 2024 reunion isn’t simply a showcase for the delicious relationship between the Philippines and Hong Kong but also a chance to celebrate and capture a cultural zeitgeist via Forés and Cheng.

“It’s truly an honor to be able to represent the Philippines and collaborate on a menu with my good friend, Vicky. Many know that Hong Kong is very close to my heart and is a city I frequent quite often,” says Forés who revealed that when she lived in the city in 1982 was also the time she started to cook in a kitchen even before going to Italy.

“That’s because Hong Kong is so inspiring. You can find the best food I think, not just local food but also international cuisine, and maybe that influenced me and my work so much.”

Team building

While I unfortunately wasn’t at their first four-hands dinner in 2017, Forés and Cheng, I assume, were only starting to gain momentum from their debut collaboration. Forés even said they hadn’t even met before the invitation and only got together when she got there but confessed that it was “one of the best learning experiences and one of my happiest Hong Kong experiences because chef Vicky made the best suppers and staff meals for all of us before and after service.”

But this time, the pair breaks through with the confidence and calm of chefs at the peak—literally and figuratively—of their careers.

The 11-dish collection is a showcase of the duo’s feelings for Filipino and Chinese flavors. Always intentional and emotive, sometimes verging on the experimental, and never disappointing.

“We wanted to collaborate together on most of the dishes to really bring out the best of both Hong Kong and Philippine flavors. From the first course up to the dessert, chef Margarita and I used ingredients we sourced from each other, fusing together the flavors from our homes,” says Cheng, whose ingenuity with fine Chinese-French cuisine at his 25-seat Michelin-starred restaurant Vea and fine dining restaurant Wing was on full display.

The 11-dish collection is a showcase of the duo’s feelings for Filipino and Chinese flavors. Always intentional and emotive, sometimes verging on the experimental, and never disappointing. That is, a multi-course presentation replete with regional produce and products, and stellar seafood, particularly dried seafood (hoi mei), which isn’t only a pillar of traditional Hong Kong food culture but also of Cheng’s mindset.

“I knew that in order for me to call [my cuisine] Chinese-French and set myself apart is to really spend a lot of time in dried seafood and that’s what we’ve done at Vea… [with dishes using] sea cucumber, dried fish maw, and dried abalone.”

Snacks on track

Cranking the volume right from the get-go is a communal show of snack that imaginatively navigates the twists and turns of Forés and Cheng’s paths in the kitchen.

Cheng’s first two snacks reflect his personal and complex landscape: First, a smokey, acidic braided eggplant that references the time when Cheng was braiding his daughter’s hair and thought “Wouldn’t it be nice if food looked like that?” Then a sharp crystal-clear century egg with a runny yolk atop hand-pulled noodles and house-made chili sauce.

Vicky Cheng’s first snack reflect his personal and complex landscape: a smokey, acidic braided eggplant that referenced the time when Cheng was braiding his daughter’s hair and thought “Wouldn’t it be nice if food looked like that?”

Forés’ opening salvo is a Negrense-style ukoy topped with a blue marlin kinilaw cured in lime, tuba vinegar, and tabon-tabon, and shaved shrimp roe from Hong Kong, which all give the crispy bite layers and layers of flavors. Her banana heart salad (“I grew up eating that in our house,” says Forés) is as refreshing as it can get, thanks to the coconut milk, banana hearts and fried skins, and miniature fish maw from Bicol. 

Judging from these snacks alone, it’s hard to imagine how the succeeding dishes could eclipse the fireworks of the first course. But they did.

The main event

On the outstanding white pepper virgin mud crab soup, Cheng made a refined thick soup using Filipino ingredients with the “bakla” crab as the highlight delicately fused with tonkin jasmine for sweet, sun-soaked sips of warmth. “It’s an ingredient that was a discovery to [Margarita] as well,” he says.

“I have never heard of it before but we researched it and it turns out they use it a lot in Pangasinan and Ilocos. They put it into the pakbet,” says Forés.

The flavors shift slightly when Forés brings out the Bulacan river prawns served with a side of pancit canton-inspired noodles, etag, dried fish, and chilies. “Vicky was kind enough to put egg noodles in his luggage,” shares Forés. And we’re glad he did as the bite is rich but not overpowering and complements the smokiness of the etag. The river prawns meanwhile are mildly sweet but swell with deeper flavors with crab fat on top.

Halfway through, the gelatinous sea cucumber in spring roll format may be an acquired taste for Filipinos, primarily for its jelly-like consistency and neutral taste, but it sits comfortably as a statement about textures. Cheng says this version is a little different from the Wing edition. “Normally we pair it with a garnish but today we paired it with palm hearts.”

The flavors shift slightly when Forés brings out the Bulacan river prawns served with a side of pancit canton-inspired noodles, etag, dried fish, and chilies. “Vicky was kind enough to put egg noodles in his luggage,” shares Forés. And we’re glad he did as the bite is rich but not overpowering and complements the smokiness of the etag.

“Because in Negros we make our lumpia with ubod so this is a nice way to blend our inspirations,” says Forés, encouraging everyone to eat with their bare hands the way you are supposed to.

The final main course is easy to love—except if you were one of those working with Forés and Cheng who both made the last-minute menu switch after finding a beautiful wild pompano in the market for Cheng’s rice dish usually made with fish maw. Seriously though, it was a worthwhile amendment.

“We also decided to add langka, the way we eat it… not sweet, but today it was just braised in a beautiful combination of spices, flavors, and aromatics,” says Forés. Digging into the “rice bowl” you can’t help but fall for its comforting charm. The rice is chewy, akin to Japanese rice, while the jackfruit embraces the flavors of the master stock Cheng uses with hints of beef, daikon, spices, soy sauce, and sugar to have that umami permeating the dish.

The desserts follow blueprints of complexity but simplicty in execution. Their snow gum and ube gelato lays bare a slimy sweetness that changes to purple the more you stir the glassy and glossy dessert and mix the ube gelato while the pili nut hojaldres (a Visayan puff pastry) is built on smoked kesong puti and candied pink guava as an ode to Forés’ work with Italian food. Finally, the Cebu mango mochi brightly washes over your palate to put a sparkling end to the wonderful collaboration.

Calling this dinner experience a warm embrace is apt. That said, much of what Forés and Cheng did in a single night felt a lot like a clash of the titans, with us lucky enough to witness a rare celestial event. And like what happens in most cosmic impacts and galactic collisions, many were left with stars in their eyes (and hands and feet) about another similar event of this scale happening in the near future.