When our lifestyle editor, Isah Red, suggested two weeks ago that I review an authentic European gastropub at the heart of Makati’s central business district, I got excited even if the maximum volume of beer I can drink without turning beet-red is only a bottle. A pub, after all, is only half of the portmanteau that is gastropub. The other half is gastronomic, and add European to that and we’re good to go.
I asked two of my friends – Adelle Chua and Boy Bautista – to join me in eating, unannounced, at Draft Gastropub at Greenbelt 2. It was a happy coincidence, which I remembered way after we’ve left Draft, that we have all been to Europe in various capacities: Adelle as a student in Germany; Boy as a personnel of the Philippine embassy in Hungary; and I also as a student in Belgium and Germany.
Draft has all the makings of a sophisticated gastropub – wooden beams and dark fixtures, a dedicated bar for those who just want a drink, and a massive cheerful blackboard covered with all of its culinary offerings. It has that convivial European style of casual dining and beer drinking, serving premium quality European draft beers and an impressive selection of bottled beers – both famous brands such as Paulaner, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Leffe, and many lesser known artisan brews – matched with an authentic menu of hearty pub dishes.
For starters, there’s the Angry Drunk Mussels, a half-kilo pot of mussels steamed with Hoegaarden beer, bacon, chili, onion and fresh parsley and served with frites and sourdough bread. For its signature Fish and Frites, the sole fillet is coated in a crunchy Becks beer batter and served with tartare sauce.
There’s Bleu Cheeseburger made from US Angus beef topped with onion jam and drizzled with aioli as well as the European staple Pork and Fennel Sausage grilled with Leffe dark beer and onion gravy and served with creamy mashed potato.
For pasta lovers, Draft offers the Stracci, a delicious dish of shrimps, fresh chorizo, chili and homemade spent granin stracci pasta, tossed in butter, parmesan and herbs. My initial thought was that the pasta looked sad, with the uneven cut of the stracci and its brownish color looking more and more underwhelming with the gastropub’s dim interiors. This pasta’s generous flavor, however, was more than enough redeeming value, and its mild chili kick makes it a perfect pair to an ice-cold beer. We also tried the Pappardelle Pasta served with tender braised beef ragu. It is a showcase of Italian genius, with the flavorful meat sauce clinging beautifully to the shredded beef and the broad, flat noodles.
According to Chef Alfred Serrano, one of Draft’s bestselling dishes is its Sausage Platter, with grilled artisan, Italian, Bockwurst, and Andouille sausages best paired with your poison of choice on tap or in a bottle. They also have the Draft Paella, a creation of executive chef Carlo Miguel, with generous servings of shrimp, white clams, chicken, calamari, mussels, bacon and chorizo.
Gastropub has come a long way since the term was coined by The Eagle in Clerkenwell, London in 1991, to reflect a new breed of pub with better food. The Eagle, which is still in business today, has an often-rotating menu, which is always scrawled on a blackboard and includes chowders, grilled meats and whole fish, sandwiches, and composed dishes often with an Italian or Mediterranean bent.
Over the years, though, gastropub has become so bastardized by joints that look nothing like a pub and serve dishes that taste nowhere near comfort food but costs like these came from the menu of a fine-dining restaurant. Draft Gastropub, however, remains reasonably priced. Two kinds of pasta, an appetizer, and a meat-based dish, along with two orders of Russian Standard Moscow Mule cost us a little over P2,000. And to that, we raise our glasses in approval.
For feedback, send comments to [email protected]