Regina Troy Barrios

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Coquette by Miko Calo

<p>Miko Calo has always been the picture of discipline. Trained at Paris’ prestigious FERRANDI and honed in the kitchens of the legendary Joël Robuchon, she brought precision to Metronome, the Makati restaurant that became synonymous with modern French dining in Manila. Her food there was flawless—sometimes almost too flawless: sauces like glossy little mirrors, immaculate reductions, plates edited with the severity of a Paris runway show. The results were impeccable, though at times almost intimidating in their perfection.</p><p>Her new pop-up, <strong>Coquette</strong>, housed in the elegant <a href="https://www.instagram.com/casa_buenas/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Casa Buenas </a>at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/newportworldresorts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Newport World Resorts</a>, feels like the opposite. Here is Calo loosening her collar, pouring herself a glass of champagne, and allowing memory, whimsy, and instinct to lead the way. “More playful,” she calls it. That’s true—but it’s also more intimate, more unpredictable, and more daring.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17592124109161.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Chef Miko Calo serves up her most playful, personal menu yet | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>Food has always been at the heart of Calo’s life. In Butuan, she watched her aunts roast cacao into tsokolate batirol; in Manila, her half-Kapampangan cousins introduced her to petitian—crisp chicharon with rice and hand-crushed tomatoes. But it was her late aunt, Susan Calo-Medina—the TV host, writer, and tireless champion of Philippine culture—who opened her eyes to the wider world of gastronomy and urged her toward a career in it. Today, those memories sit beside the French rigor she absorbed under Robuchon, and it’s that dialogue—between memory and mastery—that defines Coquette.</p><p>The restaurant itself helps set the tone. Casa Buenas glows with carved wood and Filipino-inspired details: high ceilings, latticed panels, with fresh flowers to brighten the tables. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/champagne.florence.duchene/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Champagne Florence Duchêne</a> is poured without ceremony, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The setting signals: relax, this isn’t about reverence, it’s about pleasure.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759212525158Space-0232.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Casa Buenas is the perfect setting for Calo&#x27;s new pop up | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>You can order a five-course menu, but the real action is in the à la carte. Calo calls her approach <strong>cuisine d’auteur</strong>—cooking as autobiography—and each dish feels like a page from her diary, where French touches like foie gras, camembert, and burro velouté meet Filipino notes like kabayawa from her hometown of Butuan.</p><p>The meal begins with a quiet flourish: a basket of <strong>house-baked breads</strong>, from airy<strong> brioche</strong> to a tender<strong> shallot fougasse</strong>, each accompanied by French butter at just the right temperature. It’s impossible not to linger over the <strong>fried brioche</strong>, crisped in olive oil, the perfect vehicle for the <strong>P</strong><strong>ot de Foie Gras</strong> topped with a glistening layer of chicken broth and a punch of santol confiture.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17592126581812.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">A selection of breads and Pot de Foie Gras | Photo: EAT Public Relations </span></span></span></div><p>Her <strong>shrimp kinilaw</strong> is a revelation—cool, sweet, almost creamy, with coconut milk softening a whisper of acidity.This is Calo&#x27;s Butuan-style kinilaw, the one she says she’ll always eat, built on balance and freshness rather than vinegar shock. Coconut juice, kabayawa, and tabon-tabon dress the shrimps, with cucumber, radish, marigold, and coriander oil scattered like confetti.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759212695941Shrimp Kinilaw-10280.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Butuan-inspired Shrimp Kinilaw | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p><strong>Mussels</strong> arrive tangled with corn and cilantro, a sly note of camembert turning the broth lush and earthy. </p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759212914826Mussels-10321.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Mussels with corn, and camembert—unexpected richness in every spoonful | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>The <strong>Fregola</strong> is a stunner: tiny Sardinian pasta pearls in lobster stock, glossed with guanciale fat and topped with lardo chicharron. Calamansi gel and a flicker of paprika cut through the indulgence, keeping it in check.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759212936183Fregola-10409.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">The Fregola with its lobster, lardo, calamansi | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>The <strong>roasted pigeon </strong>is <strong></strong>perhaps the purest expression of Calo’s cooking. Served in generous breast fillets that gleam under a sticky kamias caramel glaze, here is where French technique most obviously meets personal memory.</p><div><br/><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759212965584Roasted Pigeon-10551.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">The Roasted Pigeon with kamias caramel | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>Even amidst the French-inflected indulgence, Calo never forgets the <strong>r</strong><strong>ice</strong>. Served in rustic stoneware, each grain carries the savory depth of stewed tuna roe, baked just long enough to form a golden crust. It’s comfort food that is perfectly at home beside the more elaborate plates.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1759213142829Rice-0058.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Humble rice is reborn with roe | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>The <strong>potato purée </strong>is straight from her Robuchon playbook: drowning in butter, unapologetically silken. “I’ll never be able to escape this style,” she admits. “If I do make mashed potatoes, I’m never gonna make them any other way.”</p><p>Desserts feel like an encore of memories. <strong>Amaretto sabayon</strong> floats like a cloud, concealing a cherry center and a hint of pistachio. <strong>Chocolate Cloud Nine</strong> is a nod to a childhood chocolate bar, but all grown up. The <strong>Baba au Brandy</strong> is a brioche soaked in Fundador Solera Reserva, dotted with Guimaras mangoes, and finished with a cheeky snap of black pepper.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:900px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17592132900913.jpg" style="width:900px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Dessert: Chocolate Cloud Nine and the Baba au Brandy | Photo: EAT Public Relations</span></span></span></div><p>Champagne Florence Duchêne flows freely, matching each bite and lifting the table into a quietly celebratory mood.</p><p>If Metronome was Miko Calo’s dissertation, Coquette is her diary—personal, mischievous, vulnerable, always engaging. She still has Robuchon’s thumbprint in that potato purée, but she’s she’s unafraid to fold in bold flavors like buro, calamansi, kamias, and durian. This is cuisine d’auteur in its truest sense: food as autobiography, written in butter, memory, and imagination.</p><div><em><br/></em></div><div><em><strong>Coquette by Miko Calo </strong>runs at</em><a href="https://www.instagram.com/casa_buenas/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em><strong> Casa Buenas</strong></em></a><em><strong></strong>, </em><em><a href="https://www.instagram.com/newportworldresorts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Newport World Resorts</a> until November 29 </em><em> menu that delights, surprises, and lingers</em><em>—a fleeting chance to savor Miko Calo at her most indulgent, mischievous, and memorable.</em></div>

<p>Chef Miko Calo returns with Coquette, a pop-up at Newport World Resorts where each dish blends French technique, Filipino memory, and personal flair into a menu that reads like a delicious, daring memoir.</p>

Chef Miko Calo returns with Coquette, a pop-up at Newport World Resorts where each dish blends French technique, Filipino memory, and personal flair into a menu that reads like a delicious, daring memoir.

Coquette Is Miko Calo At Her Most Indulgent, Mischievous, And Memorable

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Coquette Is Miko Calo At Her Most Indulgent, Mischievous, And Memorable

Troy Barrios

Published September 03, 2025 03:00 PM PHT

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Updated September 30, 2025 03:33 PM PHT

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coquette by miko calo

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roasted pigeon

gourmet desserts

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