Mamou Sets A Table For One: A Quiet Farewell To Monchet Olives

Yesterday, Mamou set a table for a man who will never dine there again.

It had a single place setting, with his framed photograph sitting beside the plate, and a  cocktail waiting for him to sip. Mamou posted the photograph on Instagram with these words: “One of the loveliest things about welcoming people back is that, over time, they become part of the family. @monchetthefanman, we are grateful to have had you in ours. We will miss you, dear friend. This toast is for you.”

Jose Ramon “Monchet” Diokno Olives died on September 29. He was 62. For years, Monchet was a familiar presence in the Rockwell community and its dining rooms, where he lived with his wife, Margie. A former ABS-CBN executive, he later wrote about food, travel, fashion and living well for PhilSTAR Life, while also taking on a larger role in the family business behind Casa Mercedes, the maker of handmade abanicos, earning him the affectionate nickname “The Fan Man.”

He wrote as a diner who paid attention. In his PhilSTAR Life pieces, he described meals with an opinionated pleasure: the exceptionally dry martini at the start of Josh Boutwood’s Anvil residency, the hand-chopped wagyu tartare, the lamb shank that fell right off the bone, the custard flan that became a “Ratatouille moment,” taking him back to the leche flan of his San Juan childhood. He knew what he liked. And he had the particular pleasure of a diner whose taste had been honed over years of eating, drinking and paying attention.

He was the kind of regular a restaurant comes to love. He lived in Rockwell and was a familiar, impossible-to-ignore presence in its dining rooms. His affection for food was not confined to restaurants, either. In writing about his first encounter with the martini, he traced it back to a 1995 barbecue at his home with Geny Lopez, who introduced him to the drink. Years later, he was still thinking about what made a proper martini, and what made the company around it worth remembering.

That was Monchet’s particular gift: he cared about good taste, whether it was a martini, a meal, a piece of clothing or one of the beautiful fans he helped keep alive through Casa Mercedes. His writing was never really about reviewing a restaurant. It was about the pleasure of noticing things, and having an opinion about them.

In the days since Monchet’s passing, messages have appeared across social media from the many communities he belonged to. Mamou’s may be the simplest: a table set for someone who had become part of the family, even after he was gone.

He would have appreciated that.