Comfort food meets conceptual art at Now Now
Fermentation cuisine is not new, not by a long shot. But Now Now, which began as a pandemic food concept started by friends Maxine and Bryan Kong, Patrick de Veyra, and Chino Recto, strives to take fermented dining in new directions.
For its third edition of the ReNOWn series, Now Now pairs a four-course dégustation menu with sly artist Miguel Uy, whose red-eyed “Black Dog” theme looms over the canteen-style dining space in Mandaluyong.
Now Now really is like a high-end canteen, with a lunch-counter-style open kitchen, minimal interiors and lighting, a concrete floor and aluminium dining trays (artist-etched versions of which are part of the special menu offered this Aug. 7, 8 and 9). The gallery vibe comes from subtle injections, like the crumpled metal “cloud” sculpture by Pinto artist Chino Yulo suspending from the ceiling; or Uy’s furry dog costume that just stands there in a back room while we eat. (And yes, that’s him in the costume in the looping video.)
ReNOWn, the gallery that De Veyra runs with a stable of resident artists, functions as “a way to bring together disparate art forms… Usually in a restaurant, when you collaborate it’s a four-hands menu with another chef, but for ReNOWn, we’re collaborating with contemporary studio artists, to see where they can push food in a critical way with respect to their art practice.”
During the pandemic, the married Kongs—Maxine as Director of Brand Science and Incubation, Bryan as Director of Fermentation—paired with Polish chef Mateusz Luczaj and pastry chef Lisane Luczaj to explore the possibilities of slow-food dining. Polish cuisine is known for fermented cabbages and sauerkrauts; Bryan, who co-owns with Maxine the artisanal ice cream factory Kurimu upstairs from Now Now, had been experimenting with kōji as an ingredient—the fermented rice inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae to create miso, soy sauce and sake. Here, Now Now explores these principles in a menu that plays with fast-food culture in a high-dining concept.
Except it’s not so high-dining after all. True to the canteen theme, we start with their version of “Instant Ramen”: a tin tray bearing a bowl with squares of housemade garum, dashi and chicken paitan, vinegar jelly, a separate bowl with dry noodles, and little dishes of dehydrated sauerkraut and vegetable seasonings, curled spring onions. A bottle of Yakult sits on the tray for that extra canteen touch. A splash of steamed water brings the dish to life, as the squares dissolve and you swirl in noodles and ingredients until a kind of porridge emerges. This is food that makes you think about your inner workings: about aging and the processes of making.
Next course is a “Hamburger”—but it’s not; it’s really zabuton koji steak between black shiopan buns, bursting with deviled egg salad; there’s a fermented banana salsa, tomato jam gazpacho with yeast flakes as a dip for the saba fries. A lengthy tiger chili fermented in salt and vinegar rests on the tray as a “palate cleanser,” but also as a visual kick. You can’t really eat this burger with your hands, and it’s odd at first, pairing what seems like elevated steak with such incongruous ingredients; the beef pulls it together though, adding a propulsive direction to the dish. It’s accentuated by all the fermenting around it.
I ordered a lovely Kōji Amazake shake with the dish: made from steamed rice, water, and rice kōji, the enzymes break starches into natural glucose without added sugar or alcohol. Here’s to gut health!
The reasons behind fermentation cooking are three, according to Recto, who handles marketing: it’s healthier for the gut, the shelf life becomes longer, and the flavors become deeper. “So instead of just chopping garlic, we ferment the garlic, we age it. It tastes like garlic, but it’s not really garlic anymore.”
This transformation continues in the “Manzana” dish, a black apple pie in a baked crust topped with toasted barley caramel—a subtle nod to Spanish colonial roots—with a river of fermented goat cheese foam on the side. It’s lush, with hints of umami promised in all the dishes. We end things with a plate of “Dog Treats,” special dog-bone-shaped sugar cookies spiced with ginger, lemon, and cinnamon.
For Uy, an artist as likely to craft sound installations as black-on-black paintings (when he’s not donning a black dog suit), the menu helped direct the visuals: “I thought of just making an alternate reality: I wanted it to be like a whole experience.”
What spoke to him in the menu was that “it's colonial, it's like the Japanese, the American, the Spanish influences on our culture. But also, it's very accessible. I wanted to play with the idea of elevated dining and serious cuisine, but very comforting.”
With its Michelin Select mention last year, Now Now is clearly getting attention. Art adds to the envelope-pushing. As Bryan puts it: “We were so grateful (about the Michelin listing). We were just young creatives trying to push where culture can go.”
Can’t wait to see what’s next.
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“reNOWn 03: The Black Dog” menu is available Aug. 7, 8, 9 at Now Now, 497-C Rosa Building, Calbayog corner Esteban Street, Mandaluyong City. Instagram.
