I eat a lot and cry a little at Caruso
There are restaurants that make you feel good, not just because they serve excellent cuisine. They also stir your emotions because of certain memories.
Caruso is one such place for me. This restaurant serves really delicious Italian comfort food. Caruso’s bestsellers are truffle pasta, bistecca Florentino, vongole spaghetti, carbonara, pizza, panna cotta and tiramisu. So good that Caruso, located at LRI Design Plaza on Nicanor Garcia street, has been rated one of the best Italian restaurants in the Philippines. Enough reason for the likes of Andrea Bocelli, the late Danding Cojuangco, Imelda Marcos, Fernando Zobel, Lance Gokongwei, George Yang, Miguel Zubiri and Jose Mari Chan to patronize it.
But this one stormy night, on the table are Caesar’s salad, steak, fish fillet and chiacchiere, a crispy favorite of our host, Emilio Mina. The rains are pouring outside, and both Emilio and I are crying a bit on the inside.
We talk about Evelyn Lopez, his wife who passed away last year at age 74. I was among the editors and writers that Emilio and Evelyn brought to Italy in 1995. We went to Rome, Venice and Florence, but our focus was on Treviso, the city where Stefanel was founded in 1959. A hit among the young fashionable set, Stefanel was a brand that the couple brought to Manila.
Emilio—now 91 but still a handsomely tall and charming presence—enjoys recalling how he and Evelyn met.
“I was attending a trade fair in Florence in 1989, when the elevator opened one morning and behold—I saw a doe-eyed lady so beautiful that I exclaimed, ‘Good morning, bellissima,’” recalls Emilio.
In the evening, he saw the same beautiful lady as the elevator opened again, and again the next day. Emilio decided this was destiny.
Fast forward, they got married and settled in the Philippines because the Italian gent fell in love not only with this Filipina, but with her country as well. They bought Caruso from its original owner, Dario Gardini.
Born in 1934 in Genoa, Emilio grew up amid the proverbial clangor of pots and pans. His grandmother Teresa Cornelio and his father Paolo Mina ran a hotel with a restaurant in Switzerland. It was from his elders that Emilio learned all he needed to know to become a good restaurateur.
At Caruso, Emilio envisions a classic ristorante serving the best wines. So classic that even the table covers are made of Egyptian cotton produced by an Italian family that has been in the textile business since the 1600s.
What diners find quite endearing is the way Emilio goes table-hopping and greeting guests who celebrate their birthday at Caruso, with a song. A music lover, Emilio cannot forget how Jose Mari Chan would perform numbers like Beautiful Girl when dining at Caruso. Soprano Rachel Gerodias and her baritone husband Byeong In Park, as well as pianist Raul Sunico, once delighted guests with their artistry.
The Filipinos’ love of music is one of the reasons why Emilio is fascinated with the Philippines. “And of course, the people are so kind. And religious,” adds Emilio who was sending wine to Pope Francis for over 10 years, out of devotion and admiration. He sent bottles of Barbera d’Alba which was made in Piedmont, famous for its wines and truffles. “The Pope’s paternal roots are traced in Piedmont,” Emilio explains. His gifts of wine bottles were acknowledged with thank-you notes from the Pope by cardinals from the Secretary of State.
Emilio was particularly touched when the Pope went to the Philippines. He visited the victims of Typhoon Yolanda in Tacloban. “The Pope loved poor people. He also donated 200,000 euros from his own account to help a juvenile detention center in Rome.”
One reason why Emilio and his late wife were a perfect match is that while Evelyn was into fashion retailing, Emilio was himself immersed in the Italian textile and fashion industry, having worked for 24 years at his family’s factory for stockings.
Emilio developed Spaziale Splendy, acclaimed as the world’s lightest bathrobe, which won an award for him as the Most Innovative Product at the Javits Center in New York during an event with 1,800 exhibitors. The bathrobe was a hit in Japan. Emilio was also instrumental in the launch of Marlboro Classics denim in Cremona, Italy.
Listening closely during our dinner this one stormy night at Caruso is a fashionably-dressed lawyer, Carlo Biagoli, 55, one of the restaurant’s habitues, who is a watch collector. He proposed a toast to Emilio, who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines.
I believe Emilio deserves this award for a more poignant reason: When his wife Evelyn suffered a stroke and was operated on for brain aneurysm, it took time for her healing since recovery was a painful process. For two decades, Emilio staunchly stood by her side and cared for her lovingly like a truly devoted husband. Evelyn’s daughter Happy Lopez-Gumabao once related to me that all through the years of her mom’s recovery from aneurysm and then a bad fall for which she underwent another operation, Emilio was always by Evelyn’s side. “Emilio was very caring, he never left her and provided her the best possible for her recovery. He was a good stepfather to me and my brothers Vince and Frank, especially after our father passed away. He would always regale us with stories about his Italian hometown, teach us about Italian cuisine and culture. After my mom’s death last year, Caruso has become his source of solace and comfort.”
Through the years, I would find time to bond with Evelyn at Caruso and we would recall our trip to Italy in 1995 where we feasted on good food with limoncello and grappa, and talked about retail fashion. From her wheelchair, she would hold my hand and even speak to me in the Pampango dialect, thinking I understood.
I never did understand. But I knew the meaning behind her beautiful smile and those doe-like eyes that told me she did suffer, but with Emilio always beside her, she was happy.
Now you know why at Caruso, on a stormy night, it is also raining in my heart.
