A First Look at Helm, Josh Boutwood's Newest 10-Seater Restaurant
Most talented chefs are chameleons of sorts. While they may be recognized for their expertise in a particular cuisine or lauded for their defined style of cooking, it is their ability to translate and adapt their honed technique from one culinary effort to the next that sets them apart from their peers.
A range of vast and varied experiences is also often necessary, apart from humility, patience, and innate talent.
Josh Boutwood
With Josh Boutwood's new dining room Helm, his new burger joint debuting at The Grid at Rockwell’s Power Plant Mall, and his day job as the executive corporate chef of the Bistro Group notwithstanding, the man behind Savage and Test Kitchen proves once again that he is one of those chefs who can wear many hats simultaneously and successfully.
Boutwood opened Savage just four months ago, a restaurant that makes use of elemental cooking techniques such as fire, smoke and ash, exclusively. A juxtaposition if ever there was one, the fact that Helm is located only steps below Savage has amplified just how versatile Boutwood really is and has pronounced the range in his global perspective.
Unlike the rustic and rugged dining room upstairs, Helm’s 10-seater marble counter, elegantly set with linen napkins, handsome wine glasses, and gold flatware, looks into a modern kitchen of the latest chef’s toys and gadgets.
Inside Helm, located at the Arya Residences in Bonifacio Global City
Prominently positioned on the counters that line the space are
A collection of ingredients Boutwood displays on a shelf in his 10-seater restaurant.
In true Boutwood fashion, each plate is easy on the eyes and tasty on the palate. As he personally explains each dish—an essential part of the Helm experience—diners discover that the restraint and simplicity which appear to be the defining characteristics of his cuisine may be more
Flowers are dried;
Crab fat and Queso Rustico cheese from Malagos with fennel flower
Kitayama wagyu beef tartare topped with an egg yolk emulsion and mustard leaves, and served on a pancake biscuit
Clam soup with pandan and cilantro oil
The compound salty butter served with your warm sourdough bread is not really butter but rendered pork fat that has been cured, chilled, emulsified, then
Sourdough and lavash served with a spread of rendered pork fat
Marble potato cooked in dashi of dried fish, paired with sweet potato chips and potato leaf and dusted with scallop powder
Case-smoked oyster paired with pickled banana heart and cucumber and served with beetroot and activated charcoal tuile
Braised pork rib with a sauce made from pig trotters and topped with blue ternate flower and beetroot tops, served with a pineapple gelee
Kitayama striploin, short rib cooked for 48 hours with tamarind jus, and a mushroom paste made from seven different mushrooms
The standout dish is a grilled piece of the most tender local duck you’ll ever taste. Inspired by a recent meal in Iloilo, it is artistically topped with finely-sliced cured duck yolk and slivers of fresh young coconut that has been slightly pickled. Working with a local duck farmer in Laguna, Boutwood explains that the birds are of French descent but are now born and bred in the Philippines.
Grilled duck from a farm in Laguna with lemongrass and ginger sauce, and cured duck egg yolks, and pickled coconuts
Other revelations for this
Chocolate ice cream, durian ice cream, milk skin, burnt milk skin, burnt milk puree, and palm tree sap syrup
Yema with lime, meringue with miso toffee, and chocolate truffle with a pili nut butter center ,
Helm will be open for dinner beginning August 21, Tuesday through Saturday, with seatings at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Multi-course tasting menu only with optional wine and juice pairings available.
The Plaza, Arya Residences, McKinley Parkway, Bonifacio Global City. 0906.234.1900
