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COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Before hipsters, there were bohemians, and this weeks-old restaurant along Alejandro Roces Avenue in Quezon City is a successful marriage of both. Called Gourmet Gypsy Art Café, it’s a tastefully converted space — this used to be a split-level house — with floor-to-window glass walls in front that let in all-natural light.
The wooden door is especially made by sculptor Julian Araos, as are the tables and balustrades along the short stairs leading to the private dining area that can seat 20+ people. The hipster element comes in the form of naked lightbulbs dangling from drooping wires and, in the men’s toilet, a bicycle attached to the sink.
But where in hipster restaurants you get trendy dishes like eggs benedict, quinoa salad, kale, tofu and lentil, at Gourmet Gypsy you get a sense that whoever is in charge of the kitchen is an old, world-weary soul who isn’t just pretending to be but is, actually, cool. She is Waya Araos, who used to run the defunct Kiss the Cook Gourmet restaurant on Maginhawa Street.
The menu is eclectic and exotic. For appetizers, there’s saffron arancini (crispy risotto balls stuffed with chorizo, mozzarella and saffron garlica aioli, PHP220), shakshuka (eggs paches in tomato harissa sauce and served with pita bread, PHP180) and elote mexicano (charred corn croquettes, chipotle mayo, goat cheese feta and cilantro, PHP160).
On the afternoon we visited we skipped the appetizers and dove straight into the fruit and nut salad (PHP280), a refreshing bowl of mesclun, cardamom-spiced nuts, mangoes and a bracing orange dill vinaigrette dressing. The menu mentioned that it comes with goat cheese feta but we missed that.
For our mains the Vietnamese beef stew (PHP460) delivered a potent punch with its star anise-scented tomato sauce gravy.
The Indian butter chicken (PHP420) was served with undertoasted pita pocket bread (we prefer flatbread that we can tear into pieces and dip into the gravy, thank you) and though it promised a rich yoghurt gravy on the menu, we felt it was watered down and could have been creamier.
The beautifully plated seafood chorizo cioppino (PHP380) pasta made up for that kitchen hiccup. Served with spaghetti noodles, shrimp, squid, NZ mussels, chorizo bilbao, fresh tomato sauce and pesto, it came to our table covered in grated parmesan cheese and we couldn’t get enough of it.
To cap our meal, we ordered the homemade ice cream which comes with two scoops per order. The passionfruit flavor (PHP140) was sour-sweet and a great palate cleanser, while the blue cheese and fig (PHP220) was a heady, heavenly mix that was a meal unto itself, though next time we’ll ask them to tone down the cloying sweetness.
Gourmet Gypsy, 25 Alejandro Roces Ave, Bgy Laging Handa, Quezon City; www.facebook.com/gourmetgypsy, +63 2 2325673. Daily 10am-10pm.
Coconuts Manila dined anonymously and paid for this meal. This story first appeared on Coconuts Manila.
