Gallery by Chele's New Tasting Menu Teaches Us There's More to Cacao Than Chocolate

(SPOT.ph) Everyone knows chocolate, but you can’t quite say the same about cacao. Lesser explored is the fruit (!) from which all chocolate originates—an odd disconnect, considering the Philippines’ being home to great cacao, and the many possibilities with cacao apart from being transformed into the popular confection. But it’s exactly that hole the team of Gallery by Chele is helping fill, having recently debuted a new tasting menu where cacao fruit plays the leading role—that of the main character, if you will.

Also read: 

Exploring the Roots of Chocolate at a Cacao Farm in Davao 
The Night the World’s Best Chefs Cooked for Chele Gonzalez

Take a look at the new Gallery by Chele tasting menu:

The Gallery by Chele team spent time doing research on cacao, in particular traveling to Davao and joining hands with local bean-to-bar chocolate brand Tigre y Oliva’s Rob Crisostomo. “This research brought out a different level of understanding cacao, [not just] as chocolate, but [in] different ways,” Chef Chele Gonzalez tells SPOT.ph. Crisostomo and his team have found a way to extract and pasteurize cacao pulp juice, Gallery by Chele R&D chef Kevin Menendez further shares—which gives the Chele team more room for experimentation.

We're all familiar with chocolate, made from the cacao bean that’s then fermented, dried, roasted, winnowed, ground, and tempered into the (often, sweet) treat as we know it. But so often forgotten is the fact that cacao is a fruit, and one with different parts, which Gallery by Chele’s research and development team has taken to utilize in other products and applications. There’s the shell, which comes in colors ranging from red to green to orange to violet and everything in between. There, too, is the inner pulp called the mucilage, which itself has a succulent character and tangy, tropical taste reminiscent of mangosteen or santol, and which the Chele team then concentrates into cacao syrup. Covered by the mucilage are the cacao beans—the primary base of chocolate, though the Gallery by Chele team goes left field by pickling nibs of these. The beans are also covered by a husk that the Chele team uses for fermented products like cacao champagne, cacao vinegar, and cacao kombucha.

These products are then used in a number of the courses on Gallery by Chele’s Unknown Faces of Cacao tasting menu (P4,800/six courses, P5,900/10 courses)—which spotlights the cacao fruit in novel ways than have been explored previously. After a quick sip of housemade dragonfruit kombucha by the bar plus nibbles at the urban garden and Stvdio Lab, we settle down at our dining tables for Bites, standouts being the salmon and ikura in a sweet potato nest, and the explosive kare-kare bonbon.

Out comes the Cacao Ceviche—an excellent case for using cacao in a bright and zingy light. Within a cacao pod (used as a vessel here) is a mix of grouper, corn, and kamote brightened by the cacao juice, plus the pickled nibs for textural contrast. 

Five seafood courses succeed this, each captivating in their own right with elements from different cuisines. The Swimmer Crab takes the crab’s meat, along with aligue and a shiitake-lemongrass-ginger shell, and crowns the mix with a dashi foam that emphasizes the taste of the sea. In the Octopus Satay, a potent laksa sauce gives Southeast-Asian flair to perfectly tender octopus. There’s Pomfret, cooked in the style of Japanese yakitori for smokiness, and paired with sinantolan and “green caviar” (actually the pods of snow peas). Citrus Lobster juggles richness and vivacity, the latter from yuzu and the former from a velvety beurre blanc. And in the Belly Inasal, smoky, sultry Josper-grilled tuna belly gets a soothing complement in the form of a concentrated broth of chicken and spices.

Ringing in the cacao theme for a second round is the Duck Cacao, starring a succulent strip of aged, sous-vide cooked, and pan-seared duck breast, kept company by the Mexican chocolate sauce known as mole and cacao-infused jus that stands up to the duck’s gamey taste. (Sure doesn’t hurt that it’s got further sidekicks, in the form of beetroot adobo, duck fried rice, and Gallery by Chele’s own duck pastrami.) And following a palate cleanser dubbed the Pineapple Sponge, the Chele team serves the Drunken Wagyu Tapuey—A5 Wagyu steak and tapuey-infused jus with a trio of condiments: fermented black garlic, tapuey chutney, and the kicker, beef fat emulsion, which can be mixed and matched as you please. 

This being a cacao menu, Gallery by Chele pulls no stops on the dessert front, starting with the Mucilage—an ode to its namesake (quick recap, that's also known as the cacao fruit pulp) and two-part sweet treat with “sandwiches” of cacao mucilage sorbet in meringue shells (amusingly shaped and formed just like cacao pods!), and cacao champagne for sipping on alongside. Finally we get Chocolate, with chocolate mousse imbued with cardamom, then given a fizzy shower of cacao kombucha.

Granted, Gallery by Chele isn’t necessarily the first to do chocolate or cacao gone savory, nor do they claim to be. But they’re going back to its roots and shining the light on the often neglected cacao fruit, putting it in the forefront and furthermore injecting their creativity, penchant for inspired combos, and knowledge of traditional and modern techniques into the mix. It’s a well-deserved heroine stint for cacao, which has tons of potential whether we’re talking about its fruit origins or byproducts or dishes that can be made with the latter—and these are all stages the dining establishment is more than happy to take us through.

Gallery by Chele is at 5/F Clipp Center, 11th Avenue corner, 39th Street, Bonifacio Global City. For reservations and inquiries, contact  0917-546-1673 or visit their website.

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