This restaurant’s Carpaccio di Manzo con Noci e Parmigiano—of thinly sliced and lightly marinated beef tenderloin (pounded) with green peppercorn, salad, walnuts and parmesan in olive oil—is a dynamic quilting of grand Italy’s love for cushy antipastis that provoke the palate, mildly for a fine degustation. Or, better yet, carpaccio-antipasti that marries an Italian vin perfectly with lavosh during daytime, and divorces a French Chardonnay when with heavy olive oil and biscotti.

EDSA SHANGRI-LA’S ALL FILIPINO PAPARAZZI BANQUET STAFF

As a straightforward appetizer, the Cestino di Prosciutto e Parmigiano—of bundled salad with Parma Ham, tomato relish, and Loir goat cheese in an oven-popped Parmesan cheese basket—that without paucity, holds a romantic culinary guard against modern Italian gastronomic ambiguities. With this dish, one can realize that there is just a minimal requisite to modernize a classic cuisine—because change is, and will only be, inevitable when not enjoyed—and is simply perfect as a time-tested formula. It is, indeed, our palatal preferences that dictate "change" or evolution of the Italian gastronomy on our tables.

Paparazzi’s Minestrone Classico—of traditional vegetable soup, quick-fixed with carrots, potatoes, green peas, broccoli, asparagus in tomato-hinted house broth and cucumber—is a colorful confetti of simple ingredients for one’s simple pleasure, as it plays between mild tomate and mild savory.

The resto’s new line of pasta dishes signals the Pinoys’ relentless and evolving palate for time-tested and well-celebrated Italian fares—from the traditional red sauce, to baked macaronis, to cream-based dishes—that, now, the "seafood and olive oil with or without wine reduction" sustains our interest with great delight.

A traditional Linguine Aglio Olio e Gamberi—P500 of aldente Linguini strings with a garlic base paste in olive oil, and sweet sautéed shrimps—is a monolithic gustatory satisfaction in a plate all the time. Of course, with this Aglio Olio—with wine reduction that is just right in taming the brininess of the seafood—one doesn’t get an overshoot of the garlic’s spice and twang as it brings out the sweetness of the shrimp, and forewarns an inclusion of parmesan cheese.

There is this notion that Filipinos have a burly preference to put parmesan cheese in almost all Italy-inspired dishes they can think of to make it "Italian".

The knitting of the authentic flavors of this dish will always put one in a state of merriment—as the popularization of pastas in the Philippines has gone mature, elevated and seem to impose an evolution on our perspective regarding authentic Italian cuisine.

Steak dishes as Carne di Agnello al Chianti (P950 of oven roasted rack of lamb in a grain mustard, polenta and herbs crusting, side-sauced with a natural reduction of Chianti and cassis, flavored with basil and pesto, and served with cucumber, tomatoes, and carrots,) and Tagliata di Manzo (P950 of rack-grilled sirloin steak in rosemary infused olive oil marbling, served with oven-roasted potatoes, lightly salted and seared tomatoes sautéed in spinach,) are implicitly magnificent for a main course and are more than flavorful when partnered with a softened red, or a lightly oaken white.

However, the Tagliata di Manzo (as a personal preference and as I strongly recommend) is a refined burst of simplicity, savory and sentimental with the brothel musk of farm-land Italy, and the connoisseuristic rosemary garden in an imaginary Verdi’s music—perhaps, like the pounding march of Aida.

Paparazzi’s Costoletta di Vitello Valdostena, or Steak d’ Valdosta—P980 of pan-seared, and oven-roasted veal chop, topped with Parma ham (basically just a type of ham from Parma Italy,) Fontina cheese, sautéed with porcini mushrooms and celeriac mashed potato—is a prevailing Italian gustatory ethos in a dish of veal, and is good simply because it’s good.

With the skills of food makers manning its kitchenette—who base their gastronomic compositions mostly from experience—EDSA Shangri-La fulfills the Pinoy’s quixotic fascination to foreign classical cuisine.

Just as Pinoy cooks of Paparazzi Italian Restaurant are motivated to serve authenticity—using a true culinary language that is livelier than Italy, brown-beaten and homegrown—Pinoy samplers, served with such allure, yearn to tell their own truths and come to recognize themselves and their connection to the world better in the process.

Naturally, this rationale can best be understood with dolces as the Tiramizu Classico (P250,) and Pannacotta al Fruto della Passione con Sorbetto al Lamponi e Biscotti al Pistachio (P240). Of course, the dolces (desserts) are better than the rationale.

Whether how complicated or simple an Italian dish is—despite hectic delirium of commercialized or Filipinized Italian fares that incline towards the culinary profane—truthfully, Paparazzi is our closest version of Italy.