El Cortijo at Rockwell Will Delight Lovers of Spanish, Latin American Food

(SPOT.ph) To those in the know, El Cortijo Restaurante is the go-to spot for good Spanish food when in Lipa City, Batangas. It’s good enough reason to drive to the area—a 6,000-sqm lanzones farm in Bagong Pook—if one has the luxury of time (it’s less than an hour and a half away from Makati, really). But this month and all the way to May 10, the restaurant’s fans from Manila need only make the short trip to Powerplant Mall in Rockwell to experience its no-frills take on Spanish classics and traditional dishes from Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Cuba.

This just means El Cortijo will be at Chef’s Table Balmori all days of the week except Tuesdays for five weeks, serving guests from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., even as it’s business as usual in its Batangas HQ. They're serving many of their mainstay dishes from Lipa, but also introducing new additions like Black & White Fishlings (P600), which we got to taste on their first Monday in Makati, kickstarting an excellent meal of mostly fish dishes and an extraordinary Salpicao that proprietor Patrick Reyes is mighty proud of—but more on that later.

The Black and White Fishlings is an excellent opener, a combination of Whitings fish and Indian oil sardines, one mild and the other strong. Both are flown in from Negros courtesy of Slow Food advocates Kiko and Gretchen Torno’s 7 Hectares. The white fish is served boquerones style, citrusy and acidic, on an almost paper-thin crostini; the darker fish, the Indian oil sardines, is served on the same toasty canvas but with roasted bell peppers and quail egg to offer balance, allowing you to enjoy the fish with the addition of textures and flavors.

But if boquerones isn’t your type of appetizer, worry not: the El Cortijo menu at Balmori has three pages of starters, and on page one is a certified crowd pleaser: the simple but addictive Fried Baby Squid (P350), which we got to try on our visit to Lipa during a slow weekday in March. It’s actually chipirones, served with actual Chippy chips on the side—yes, that URC snack—and a green chili pepper perched on top of the crunchy squid. It’s the dish that's become a favorite of the Balmori folks, I am told, and likely a big reason they invited Reyes and his team for a Chef’s Table gig.

For me, however, it’s the Creamy Rice with Mushrooms and Foie Gras (P1050) that I still think of on occasion—a silky porridge flavored with three kinds of mushroom and that luxurious dose of duck liver. It’s like that warm, satisfying hug you never knew you needed.

While El Cortijo’s dishes may not excite the ordinary Instagram content creator, short as they are on today’s de riguer razzle-dazzle, the food is certainly not lacking in surprises and ability to delight, both in flavors and visually. A lot of thought goes into the combination of elements here, which includes the introduction of ingredients that bring a dish to a place where it needs to be: that point where it agrees with memory. Particularly the well-traveled Patrick’s memory of his culinary sojourns in Spain and Latin America.

Or sojourns in his own kitchen. The inspiration for El Cortijo, says Patrick, is the pochero that his home cook prepares for him, a dish that traces its roots to the Spanish Cocido.

“We started with traditional Spanish food as this is one of the cuisines I love,” Patrick says when asked how he created his menu for the restaurant. The former president and COO of AboitizLand collects art, used to write sports, and is a seasoned host—all persuasions that require a good eye for detail. He loves to entertain at home, whether that's home in Batangas or Manila. He says he expanded the El Cortijo repertoire to include Latin America “because I believe that culinary journey eventually goes all the way to the Philippines. In the same way that our Pochero has roots in Spain's Cocido, I looked for dishes in Latin America that trace their culinary heritage to the Iberian Peninsula.“

Which is why there’s Moqueca in his soup lineup, or the Brazilian Coconut Seafood Stew (P450), which has Portuguese influence. El Cortijo’s version uses coconut milk, not in the familiar, thick Asian way but in a more refined approach, leaving only a hint of creamy taste on the mouth, a bit of spice from the pepper, and the flavor of saltwater clams and fish, which in this case is Wahoo or tangige.  

For the mains, Patrick and I share three dishes, two of which have fish as major element and both with red sauce: the Red Snapper with Vizcaina Sauce (P1650), which I prefer for its light, citrusy brightness and the softness of the fish, and the Wahoo Vera Cruz (P1250), whose sauce is heavier but is excellent in its own way.

The Red Snapper was grown from the 7 Hectares farm in Negros and sits here on a sauce made from a sweet kind of pepper—not of the red chirocero peppers grown in Spain but a kind that somehow, according to Patrick, works that it delivers similar results. Adding a texture of crunch are layered cubes of potato that, I assume, were baked first and then fried. The Wahoo Vera Cruz, meanwhile, is tangige on a gorgeous tomato-based sauce, the assertive taste of the fish going head to head with the tomato flavor that also offer hints of olives and garlic.

Our third main, if you haven’t guessed yet, is the Beef Tenderloin Salpicao (P1050). “Everyone loves salpicao, but they really love ours,” says Patrick. There was even a guy, he says, who kept requesting for it over several tasting sessions for a son’s birthday party that Patrick eventually joked he’ll soon start charging him for it.

It’s in how the garlic is cooked, says Patrick—not over-fried that they become chips but fried just enough so that the oil is infused with the garlic juice. Plus the mushrooms help, of course, and a good olive oil. There’s no secret ingredient, really, if that’s what you’re waiting for. And yet it tastes so—how do the kids call it these days?—boujee? Fancy. Swanky. Special. “It’s the simplest ones that are the hardest to get right,” says Patrick. “Because they’re so exacting. You really need to pay attention.”

Which is really what describes Patrick’s food at El Cortijo, whether one is having at his white tablecloth restaurant in the middle of a 6,000-sqm lansones farm, or here in this well-appointed dining room that is Balmori at Rockwell. It’s simple food done right, and given the kind of attention only a seasoned host could give. Which is why his Gambas al ajillo, or Shrimp with EVOO, Garlic and Chillies (P600), is a must-order—Patrick insists only on a certain size shrimp so that the cooking is balanced and the meat stays juicy and plump—and his Nicaraguan Three-Milk Sponge Cake (P350) not to be skipped—it's moist yet sturdy, no extra milk oozing out, and with just right amount of sweetness: the way a Tres Leches was always meant to be.