Where great food meets great design

You’ve probably heard the joke about a certain ex-President complaining about his expensive restaurant bill. A guest tells him it’s probably due to the ambiance, to which the President replies indignantly, “Who ordered the ambiance?”

Kidding aside, ambiance is not on the menu at Steak & Frice, Amado Forés’s newish restaurant in BGC (it opened last December), but it’s served to you in spades thanks to its designer, Hong Kong-based architect Sean Dix, who made a splash worldwide by designing Yardbird, a modern izakaya in HK that was such a standout it landed on San Pellegrino’s “50 Best Restaurants in Asia” list in 2014.

Dix, a tall, blond American who hails from Kansas City, Missouri (go, Chiefs!), actually lived in the Philippines from ages 10 to 12, because his father was assistant director for the Peace Corps in the region. “When we lived here, my family adopted my brother and sister, so I have a Filipino brother and sister back in the States,” Dix relates. “And she’s a complete smartass. She introduces me to her friends as her Asian brother.”

Though he was too young to absorb any style influences from the Philippines, Dix has the warmth and friendliness of the typical Pinoy, plus the curiosity of the cultural anthropologist he initially wanted to become. “I’m fascinated by people — trying to figure out why they do things.”

He did his undergrad at the Art Institute of Chicago with a double major in interior architecture and sculpture before taking his master’s at Domus Academy in Milan, apprenticing under iconic architect Ettore Sotsass (“From him I got the courage to work with material and color combinations that are challenging”).

Living, working and starting a family in Italy, after 15 years Dix moved to Hong Kong for the opportunities — “and I always liked this part of the world.” Though he still keeps an office in Milan, he’s been based in Hong Kong for the past 15 years, and has designed almost 50 restaurants there, many of them as atmospheric and stunning as a Wong Kar-wai film set (he’s a fan).

Amado Forés loved the look of one of the Hong Kong restaurants Dix designed, the New Punjab Club, but the young restaurateur had to work up the courage to approach the celebrated architect. “I met Sean more than five years ago,” Amado relates. “Initially I really wanted to work with him for A Mano; it just didn’t work out with the timelines. At that time, also, when I was just starting out, I didn’t have the confidence to work with Sean,” he laughs. “In those five years, we really got to know each other, just chatting and discussing a lot of restaurants we liked.”

One of them was St. John in London, a Michelin-starred restaurant that is “very modern but in an extremely simple, understated, unpretentious way,” according to Dix. “It’s basically some natural wood, white tablecloths, a very, very stripped-down palette.”

Another was Peter Luger, as well as classic entrecote places in Paris.

“We wanted to build something like a future classic,” says Amado. “Something that will last for a long time and be a little bit different as well.”

Consequently, Steak & Frice is not your typical steakhouse but a warm, inviting space that boasts the Sean Dix wow factor:  it looks modern yet retro at the same time, with clever touches like meat-cleaver door handles, rounded edges (Dix calls them “little radiuses”), and flooring made entirely of butcher blocks.  “In the 1800s it was a very typical flooring for factories and staircases because it’s end-grain wood, so it’s actually stronger than steel,” notes Dix. “This stuff will last forever. And when you need to refinish it, you just sand off the top layer and you’re good to go again, because it’s very durable and beautiful.”

Natural materials were used, and the furniture was produced locally. “Everything’s custom,” says Dix, who also designs the furniture that will occupy his spaces. “There’s nothing off the rack. Everything is bespoke. Even the mirrors were produced locally.”

Both he and Amado had the idea of comfort, of creating, not a special-occasion place, but a neighborhood restaurant that people could come back to regularly.  Amado toyed with printing “See you next week” on the bill — “It’s a nice challenge for us to live up to,” he says — and the young restaurateur put his personal stamp on the playlist, which is not traditional steakhouse jazz but fun, contemporary pop, and irreverent twists on the food.

“Like specifically with the steak, putting fries, rice and steak in one plate is something that I haven’t really seen anywhere else,” Amado notes.  He also points to our puff pastry appetizers: “These are classic gougeres that you find in any French bistro, but I put cheese pimiento inside.”

Amado also serves a blooming onion Outback-style, “but done right, you know?” enthuses Dix. “The (deep-dish) Parker House rolls, I feel like I’m revisiting 1950s America.” And instead of typical potato chips, Steak & Frice serves airy gourmet pillows called Potato Soufflé that are extremely addictive.

While my tablemates were exclaiming over the goodness of the steaks and wagyu, I had a choice between salmon and a cauli-steak, and opted for the latter.  Like all the cuts of meat at Steak & Frice, it came with French fries and a mound of rice on the plate.  Amado should also put a sign outside that says, “Leave your no-carb/low-carb diet at the door” or “Happy carbs served here,” because once you try the “frice” on your plate, it’s so good you’re doomed to finish all of it.

If it’s possible, the restaurant looks even better at night, a beacon inspired by either Edward Hopper’s iconic “Nighthawks” painting or Tom Waits’ “Nighthawks at the Diner” album cover — probably both, considering Dix’s myriad influences.

“The lighting is super-nice, it’s very flattering and it’s quite precise,” notes Dix. “So your food is really nicely illuminated, but also the color of the light is very warm, so people look better. There’s lighting hiding underneath things and behind things and this place all kind of flows.”

The wallpapers and ceiling are all acoustic to absorb sound and keep it from bouncing around.

“These are things that most people, when they talk about design, they don’t think about that stuff, but it’s very much about wanting people to feel comfortable,” Dix says.

Such is the designer’s attention to detail that Amado’s mom, acclaimed chef Margarita Forés, also enlisted Dix to design her upcoming restaurant.

“It’s still a secret because it’s super in the planning stages, but definitely I’m doing it with Sean,” Forés says. “But it’s towards the end of the year.”

She and Dix met through Mark “Jappy” Gonzalez of Homme et Femme, because the latter was going to do a fashion boutique in Hong Kong that he wanted Dix to design (the architect has also done luxury retail spaces for Moschino and Furla). “Jappy told me Sean’s story and then we met here,” Forés says. “One of the things that drew us to each other was because of his real understanding of the Filipino mindset. And then half his life is Italian, right? So, it was perfect, like, we speak the same language when it comes to things that we love.”

“I’m at the starting gate ready to take off,” Dix says about their project.

One thing’s for sure: ambiance may not be listed on the menu, but it will be served to you in spades, beautifully lit and with that Sean Dix wow factor.

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Steak & Frice is located on the Ground Floor of Central Square Mall, 30th Street corner 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, tel. (0917) 125-8188.