Chef Robby Goco serves food with a viewpoint
What can a highly exclusive, private destination for socials and meetings be like? It can be located on a 40th floor penthouse with 360-degree views of the city, edgy yet stylish interiors and high-end gastronomic experiences provided by top chefs from all over the world.
Such a destination is PVT Members Lounge at the Exquadra Tower 1 in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, where exclusivity and privacy reign in a space designed to be both comfortable and surprising. Targeting business leaders, entrepreneurs and individuals of note, this members-only lounge once again brings another elevated dining experience, this time by chef Robby Goco who is behind the much-loved Greek restaurants Cyma Greek Taverna, Souv! By Cyma and Elaia by Cyma.
Chef Robby’s restaurants are known for hearty servings of healthy Greek food with the lavish use of extra virgin olive oil, farm fresh veggies and choice meats. His multi-course menu for PVT Members Lounge is still Greek, but very different from what he serves at his restaurants.
“It’s Aegean, it’s Mediterranean, it’s Greek, but it’s elevated,” says chef Robby. “You have dishes with dry-aged fish, moussaka presented in a more modern way, a Greek salad where we add ground Cretan rusks, among others.”
Chef Robby has been a part of PVT since day one. “At PVT we have guest chefs from different parts of the world. The last one was a Japanese Brazilian based in Canada, and the next food event is going to be a taco tasting.”
Bartender for the night Dorian Mohr made cocktails prepared with Santa Ana gin, including a Rosy Garden Royale with Santa Ana Pomelo, a homemade hibiscus syrup, blueberry and hibiscus tea with a touch of grapefruit soda. As guests sipped their cocktails, the sun began to set, spreading the sky with deep reds and oranges. Definitely, dinner should be timed to include that glorious sunset.
Chef Robby says that for Greek food, ingredients must be the best of the best—the olive oil should be super good, the tomatoes must be red and ripe. “We make the effort to get and know the story of each ingredient.” He is ably assisted by his protégé chef Enzo Samson who, among other tasks, handles costing to make sure that using the best ingredients is still feasible and doable.
Because PVT members have been requesting Mediterranean food, we started off with the mezze. What normally are dips in bowls were presented as quenelles and chef Robby called them “a more fun version of what we serve at Cyma and Souv.”
There was tzatziki with cucumbers, Greek yogurt and dill; hummus with a kalamata tapenade; tarama with cured fish roe from Greece and topped with ikura; plus a melitzanosalata with charred eggplant, tomato, feta and paprika oil.
It was tempting to polish off all the mezzes served with a selection of bread, but there was still more to come in this multi-course menu. The next course was dry-aged crudo, which offered a selection with dry-aged tuna, salmon and scallops with tobiko and orange zest. Then followed a traditional summer salad with ground rusks, which is a bread from Crete.
After that came the mains. Seafood lovers enjoyed the red grouper with a crisp skin and garlic ladolemono pili pili, and meat lovers were more than happy with the next dish, beef moussaka with aged beef and eggplant slow-cooked in tomato sauce and finished with a Parmesan mornay.
Chef Robby, a “lambassador” recognized by the Australian government, served up “pressed lamb,” a method not used at Cyma or Souv. To make the pressed lamb, lamb shoulder is cooked until super soft, then taken apart, reassembled and impacted together. The meat is then chilled and browned. Fork-tender and delicious, this is a highlight in an already outstanding multi-course menu.
Dessert was a 1,000-layer milopita with a walnut sauce that perfectly capped off the meal.
Chef Robby Goco’s menu will be available at PVT Members Lounge until the end of July. For PVT inquiries and reservations call +63 9171930597 or email reservations@pvtmemberslounge.ph.