At Azadore, There's a Feast for Your Eyes and Your Mouth
Most restaurants start with a concept. Proprietors—chefs and owners—figure out what they want, find a location, then develop a menu. In Azadore’s case, the location came first. The Filipino dining outlet in the Scout area of Quezon City is the latest from Chef Myke “Tatung” Sarthou, who is perhaps best known for his straightforward, no-nonsense take on Filipino cuisine in restaurants like Pandan Asian Café in Tomas Morato, Lore in Bonifacio Global City, and a private dining space in his own home in Antipolo, Rizal.
There were no immediate plans to put up a new restaurant, until he and his partners got wind of a prime piece of property for lease on the corner of Scout Fernandez and Scout Torillo in Quezon City. It was an old house built around the middle of the 20th century, and it reminded Chef Tatung of his grandmother’s house in Cebu.
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“The space definitely came first,” he tells Esquire Philippines. “We were like, ‘Kaya ba natin?’ And we said, gawan natin ng paraan. We didn’t even know where we would get the capital (for this new restaurant). The opportunity came and we agreed to take on the challenge. ”
There were other parties interested in getting the space, but Chef Tatung confides that they managed to scrounge up enough from the earnings of the other restaurants to put in a bid. They eventually won the lease. The next step was to figure out what exactly they were going to do with the old house.
“The owners of the property wanted to preserve the structure,” he says. “And we wanted to preserve that period, too.”
Partnering with designer Ivy Almario, Chef Tatung says decided to keep the basic structure and identity of the house and add modernist sensibilities. He says they were inspired by the aesthetic of the old animated TV series The Jetsons.
“The house is really more of Ivy Almario’s design,” he says. “Architecture is midcentury modern period. We wanted something that was young and quirky. Something elegant but not stuffy. Something that adults can enjoy but where you can still bring your kids. There are geometric patterns, neon lights, a bit of quirkiness.”
Chef Tatung says there was no formal design plan for the house. They didn’t even go through CAD or computer-aided design. He and Almario just bounced ideas off of one another.
“We just talked constantly,” he says. “She would just react to certain things and certain design problems on the spot.”
The process of developing the menu went through something similar. Chef Tatung says he was inspired by Sunday potluck lunches with the entire clan, including friends and neighbors, in his grandmother’s house in Cebu. People would bring different dishes for everybody in the house to share.
There are Spanish and American influences in the menu, but it’s still decidedly Filipino. There’s Bacon-Wrapped Prawns (P480) and Salpicao (P700) for starters, and a decadent Paella Mixta (P1,200) with everything you’d expect: chicken, clams, squid, shrimp, and tasty chorizo all mixed into a bed of fragrant rice. There’s also Callos (P860) and a lengua dish called Lola Pura's Lengua a la Sevilliana (P820). There’s also a selection of pizza and pasta dishes (try the Three-Mushroom Truffle, P490).
Paella and Salpicao
Bacon-Wrapped Prawns
Southern-style Spiced Chicken
Chori sliders
Since opening in April this year, the restaurant has only gotten more and more popular, so the biggest issue just might be parking (there’s street parking available around the area). Otherwise, if you’re of a certain age, a visit to Azadore will remind you of Sunday family get-togethers at the ancestral house, just like how Chef Tatung himself was inspired to create the restaurant in the first place.
