Simple and clean
Resorts World Genting is on quite a culinary roll. Cuisine has always been prominent in the appeal of the mountain resort and in the last 12 months, the ante has been consistently upped. Contributing to this upward trajectory is Chef Francesc Rovira, who recently graced the hilltop for two evenings, bringing the menu of Michelin-starred La Fonda Xesc in Girona, Spain to Genting, Malaysia.
Michelin stars and Spain tend to invoke images of foam, emulsions, gelées and the sort of cutting edge, modernist take on food linked with names such as El Bulli and Arzak. Chef Rovira offers something else. “That is not my style,” he says. His wife Meritxell Vilalta, who manages the front of house at La Fonda Xesc, puts it even more bluntly – “We don’t like that sort of food.”
What do they like then? To judge simply by the compositions on the plate, La Fonda Xesc stands for clean, honest and rustic flavours, closer in spirit to Nordic locavore haute cuisine but with less of an ornamental approach. A starter skewer of gambero rosso shrimp croquette with basil and soy sauce followed by a cold tomato and crab soup with cream cheese, herring eggs, coriander and ginger demonstrate this aptly: immaculately plated without looking like an art installation with fabulous, bold flavours.
You might glance at the ingredients and guess that the soy sauce, ginger and coriander were inclusions to appeal to our Asian tastebuds. That would be incorrect. The recipes were lifted directly from the menu at La Fonda Xesc, refined over an extensive process that yields some 15 or so new dishes every season – peaches and crab in the summer, mushrooms and venison in the winter. His style may be rustic, but also inclusive; unexpected ingredients help make the dish more than merely Spanish.
Paired by delicious wines supplied by Grupo Freixenet, the menu progressed through lobster with seasonal vegetables, sea bass with zucchini and peach, and an utterly delectable beef and pork burger topped with chard. Bursting with flavour with none of the pretense, it’s easy to see why members of the Barcelona football team regularly helicopter in the mountains to dine. Not when Chef Rovira is away though; the restaurant closes when they go travelling. Nothing but the hands of the chef will do at La Fonda Xesc. The duo seems sweetly inseparable, but Meritxell cheekily admits that proper delineation in restaurant duties is necessary for the happy marriage.
Will they take anything back from this stint in Malaysia? “We’ve been to Thailand and Vietnam, but Malaysia is different,” Rovira says. “There’s a whole new world of flavours and techniques here that I’m excited to experiment with. I think nyonya cuisine is most interesting.” So don’t be surprised if coconut milk and candlenut start to grace La Fonda Xesc’s menu soon.
