We thought something might be wrong when our server offered free beer. Four free beers, to be precise.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but do you like beer?”
Nobody had ever asked me such a thing; it’s like asking a pedo vacationing at Disney World if he remembered to pack an extra memory card for his camera.
“Uh, I do, I do like beer,” I replied. “How do you know me so well?”
Ha ha… ha. He entertained my cornball response with a polite smile–I can’t help it, they just stumble out sometimes–and for a moment I felt a little like David Brent.
“Okay, because I forgot to say we have a promotion for two San Miguel Light beers for free with every pizza.”
We’d ordered two pizzas, so we were apparently entitled to four beers on the house.
Forget for a minute that it was just a late-afternoon happy hour thing, and that at 90 pesos per beer (about US$2) the two-for-one deal doesn’t exactly reek of desperation; forget, too, that Miguel Light is only a beer by technicality. At Motorino Manila, the Philippine outpost of the praised pizzeria imported all the way from Brooklyn, free beer–and free-flowing wine, which I’ll get to in a minute–hinted that for everything the globally minded franchise had done right, they may have, unfortunately, gotten one of the most important things wrong.
Located on the third level of swish lifestyle complex Greenbelt–don’t you dare call it a mall–Motorino Manila is the restaurant’s third foray into Asia, following two successful setups in Hong Kong and preceding the recently opened Motorino Singapore. Greenbelt is a logical landing point. Sprawling across four separate buildings linked by a leafy courtyard, one which by the way features a sizable open-air Catholic church smack in the middle, this is the trendy everything-for-everyone center of affluent Makati; everyone, that is, save for the millions living at or below Manila’s poverty line, curious for a peek at the star-bellied sneetches taking photos of themselves with gold-plated phones inside the ivory tower.
Well-armed guards stationed at entrance-area metal detectors double as human quality-control attendants, keeping everybody out who doesn’t look as if they belong among The Chosen Ones. The security is understandable–adjacent Glorietta Mall was bombed twice in the ’00s, killing 11 people and injuring more than a hundred–but I have to say that a dainty cup of fat-free yogurt, topped with mochi balls and shaved organic coconut, sure tasted guilty when I saw a scruffy street kid asked to beat it, plasticine women clutching designer handbags skirting past him.
But, hey, we’re here to talk pizza, not poverty.
As I say, Greenbelt makes sense for Motorino. It has the foot traffic and it has the buzz, and it has hungry, thirsty after-work crowds armed with slutty credit cards.
The attractive interior, too, is textbook Brooklyn, or at least the version of it exported overseas. Flooring is fashioned from mosaic tiles and tabletops from white marble, and the pressed-tin ceiling, like the one in my old Williamsburg railroad apartment, is a nod to the borough that’s probably too subtle for locals; it’s a nice touch, even so. There’s Motorino’s signature tiled, wood-fired oven, and anchoring the spacious dining room is an oversized photographic print of the red-railinged, Manhattan-side pedestrian ramp of the Williamsburg Bridge, which I biked and ran hundreds of times over the years (and which is another Brooklyn nod lost in translation).
Just as it was surreal seeing these touchstones of my Brooklyn past, it’s remarkable how closely the Manila kitchen replicates the flawless Neapolitan pizzas fired by their founding father. In the mold of pies served at Frey’s Famous Pizzeria in Tokyo, the Motorino style is thin and gooey in the middle with a chewy, bubbled, blackened crust. In Manila it wasn’t a carbon copy of the real thing–the crust could have been puffier and more charred, and yes, I realize how douchey I sound saying so–but it was close enough. Considering Motorino’s status as one of the best pizzerias in New York, this is likely about as good as pizza gets in Manila.
In short, chef Mathieu Palombino, don of the growing Motorino empire, nailed it in Manila… but it’s a shame about the location, because at Greenbelt the after-work action gravitates towards the ground level. For all the things Motorino has going for itself, I worry about its long-term sustainability on the “remote” third level: the dining room was eerily empty during both of my visits, a noticeable contrast with the bistros downstairs packed to near capacity. It’s only two floors up, but nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd and there just isn’t one upstairs; it doesn’t help that Motorino’s neighbor is the offensive, decidedly uncool TGI Friday’s. (Speaking of bombings… ergh, just kidding.)
On my return visit to Motorino, on a Saturday night, I saw that the late-afternoon special of two-for-one beers had matured into two hours of free-flowing wine, for the price of about two glasses. That’s an insane deal for primetime dining hours–and, in turn, perhaps a sign the pizzeria hasn’t yet found its critical mass. Brooklynites would be tripping over themselves to get in on such a booze bargain (as if it would ever be offered); on that particular, breezy Manila night, nobody seemed to care about it because hardly anybody was there. Down below, it was largely standing room only.
Despite the numerous press clippings displayed prominently near the entrance–not an uncommon thing to do, of course, but glowing reviews look defensive when backed by an empty dining room–out of context Motorino may, to the local populace, look like just another Greenbelt restaurant. Here’s hoping it finds its way, and that Disney does something about all those nefarious pedos lurking in its theme parks.
Motorino Manila is located at Greenbelt 3, third level, in Makati City, Manila. +63 (02) 754 8018. Open Sunday – Thursday 11am – 11pm, Friday and Saturday 11am – midnight. Closed Monday.
