Filipina chef Margarita Fores is a busy woman. In Manila, she runs a small empire of eateries — ranging from a chain of informal Italian cafes to the upscale restaurants Grace Park and Alta — and has been crisscrossing the globe since 2016, when she was named Asia's best female chef by the U.K.-based World's 50 Best Restaurants organization.
Earlier this month, Fores traveled to Japan for her first collaboration dinner event with chef Hiroyasu Kawate, of restaurant Florilege in Tokyo's Aoyama district. When I catch her for gin and tonics on her penultimate night in the Japanese capital, she has just come from a marathon session of kakigori (shaved ice flavored with sweetened syrup) sampling with Kawate at Minatoya, his favorite shop in Shibuya Ward.
"We had eight," she tells me, emphasizing the number with a flash of her expressive brown eyes. "My favorite one was the chestnut. I had no idea Japanese chestnuts were so sweet."