If the Spice is Right

5-Star Radisson Blu’s newest Executive Chef beats the zip in spicy dishes and the heat in the kitchen as he warms up to welcoming Cebuanos, including the writer, Jareliese Mauro.

Just like pasta cooked al dente, Italian chef Marco Amarone’s defining moments in the culinary business refuse to go delicate. He has cooked up a very palatable chef career for himself that reviews about his cooking are more appealing than the previous ones. With impressive knife skills that go along with his leadership qualities, this culinary virtuoso not only polishes edible creations of pleasurable consumption but also infuses his love for cooking with such personalization that you would forget you’re on a diet or on a shoestring budget and just wallow in happiness found in his gastronomic art form. One can’t help but relish this experience. His well-developed discriminating taste was refined from having prepared gourmet meals in at least 12 different countries for the last two decades—exposed to flavors more exotic than the last. In this interview, he removes his toque blanche,gesturing dissociation from being a chef to a gourmand and talks about his passions—cooking and food—with such zeal that each story is represented in his favorite spices.

Thai Basil

With a distinct licorice flavor, Thai basil is more stable under high cooking temperatures or long period of cooking.

Just like the Thai basil in the face of titillating pressure, this great talent has devoted himself to a stable career of embellishing entrees and providing that sensuous relationship between man and his meal that he has gained a lot of achievements under his belt (or make that double-breasted white jacket). Barely of legal age, Chef Marco at 16 clashed head on with the ebb and flow of the unforgiving food industry in Italy’s Michelin-star restaurant, Don Alfonso. He further stirred his signature flair in cooking while having been employed in Rome’s La Pergola restaurant (in Waldorf Astoria hotel). His mindset, however, heightened when he was trained by Ferran Adria of what was once the world’s best restaurant, El Bulli, in Spain (closed in Aug. 2011). Fancier than its pricey plated dishes, Chef Marco’s exposure to Adria’s molecular gastronomy had brought out the artist in him, geared with the immaculate white plate as his canvass, and the food, his art. If an alchemy of flavors could result from basic but quality ingredients, then he has Robert De Niro’s Ago restaurant in L.A. to thank for. His training there had been a multi-sensorial and phenomenal experience. Chef Marco had his share of elevating that epicurean experience for Hollywood stars, the rich and famous, and powerful political figures in Italy, Thailand, and Jordan. Beginning at 25 years old, he has internalized the role of the Executive Chef in la-di-da places such as Garibaldi Group of Restaurants, Centara Grand Beach and Anantara Resorts (both vacation spots are in Thailand), The World-Residences at Sea (luxury cruise liner), and currently, in Cebu’s Blu Raddison.

Lemongrass

This light body of subdued lemon aftertaste delivers without the bite. Everything about it creates a refreshingly light yet intriguing impact.

Just like the effect of lemongrass in a dish, there’s nothing overtly complicated about Chef Marco’s style of cooking. His is as basic as it gets. His philosophy in creating food for the senses started as adapting to what customers like, so some recipes were tweaked a bit to concede to the customer’s wired palette; however, over the years, Chef Marco has absconded fusion confusion to become a purist. He wants to evade from the cliché of cooking, and make patrons be involved in the real deal, so people could understand the nature of quality food and how it is prepared in different countries. Although he admits that he has learned cooking techniques from multi-cultural settings in varied facets (be it from a hawker stall or a fine dining restaurant), a “happy meal” is always comprised of good taste, fresh and quality products, and balance—it all boils down to keeping things simple. He advises, “Do not compensate for the lack of good ingredients, never compromise quality, strip the nonsense, make flavors work by making the right combination, and let the taste have that good connection with your tongue.”

He fondly recalls his childhood to have a steady diet of homegrown vegetables and fresh meat from his grandfather’s farm instead regularly downing a “burger and fries” combo. “In this industry, the first tool that needs to be developed is the tongue. Growing up in Naples to a family of great cooks had taught me how to love food and cooking. I was exposed to the best-tasting and freshest ingredients long before I started this career,” states Chef Marco who also confirms that his hometown makes the best soft, thin-crust, clay oven-baked pizzas in the world.

Tamarind

When dried, the sour-pulp nestled in brown pods becomes interestingly sweet and sour.

Sweet yet a tad acidic, Chef Marco’s extremely hands-on management style both spoils and authorizes. The gustatory extravaganza in the busy hotel is made possible by Chef Marco’s overseeing the staff in its daily operations. His day starts day at 8:00 am fulfilling duties such as leadership team meetings, menu making, innovative cooking up-trainings, and delegation of tasks. He ensures that the highest standards are being met. This demanding grind usually comes to a halt a little after 9:00 pm. “This kind of job needs commitment, passion, critical thinking, and organization skills,” Chef Marco averts. His subordinates describe him as an approachable and fair leader who constantly holds team huddles so he and the staff can look for ways to improve the meal and overall customer experience.

The conscious eater is an oblivious follower of the Slow Food Movement whereby eating slowly and digesting the meal involves understanding of the mixture of every morsel that lands on your pink buds and taking pleasure of it all with your senses—visual, olfactory, and sensatory. The spices we include in our dishes adequately surprise all expectations. Chef Marco insists that your mouth’s adventure starts when the most basic food components, mixed with catalyzing spices, enrich the chow’s taste but not its essence, and make the entire eating experience overwhelming.