Rediscovering Philippines Through Food and Coffee 🇵🇭

July 2022 will be ending in a few days. 7 months over for this year! I remember how I was planning to create a post about June to celebrate the 1st half of the year. A lot of my friends did. But I ended up not posting anything heh! And just like that, here I am about to write how July turned out to be quite an adventure for Ealden and I.

I’m ashamed to admit it but being born and raised in the Philippines made us take Filipino dishes for granted. Foreign cuisine is preferred when dining out or having delivery. The idea that we can eat it whenever did not make it appetizing.

With Manila lockdowns slowly easing up and businesses starting to open again, we decided to go on a journey of rediscovering Philippines — the food, the places, the people and their talent to turn simple ingredients to world-class dishes.

Breakfast at Antonio’s Tagaytay, February 2019

So we started a list, did our research, sorted those places based on location, and slowly incorporated the reservations in our schedule. We discovered most of these restaurants from spot.ph articles and (surprise!) Instagram account recommendations.

There was a specific criteria for these places: it must serve Filipino cuisine in a way we’ve never tried before. We paid special attention to budding Filipino chefs but also included restaurants owned by foreign chefs who appeared to have developed a particular love for our food and our country.

As for coffee shops, we prioritized Filipino-owned over franchises. We thought we won’t be able to find much but apparently the coffee culture in our country drastically changed during the pandemic — for the better!

I’d like to make this the MAIN article, to house the list we’ve carefully curated. I’ll regularly update this as we discover new places. A separate story will also be written for each restaurant / cafes and may be accessed through the links. The absence of link means the story is currently in progress.

I know this mini project will take so much time and effort but, here goes!

Here’s hoping this inspires you to explore the Philippines too — through food and coffee. ♥️

🍽 PH Restaurants

(in order of visit)

• The Test Kitchen, Makati City
• Helm, Taguig City
• Savage, Taguig City
• Gallery by Chele, Taguig City
• Romulo Cafe, Quezon City
• Lunes Everyday Dining, Makati City
• Hapag, Quezon City
• Beso Beso, Makati City
• Metiz, Makati City
• One World Kitchen, Makati City
• Grace Park Dining, Makati City
• Farmer’s Table, Tagaytay City
• Papa Bolo, Tagaytay City
• Samira, Tagaytay City
• Japonesa Peruvian Cuisine, Makati City
• Shaka, BGC, Taguig City
• Bench Cafe, Taguig City

☕️ PH Cafes

(in order of visit)

• Yardstick, Makati City
• Antipodean, Makati City
• Prologue, Quezon City
• Bad Cafe, Makati City
• Curator, Makati City
• Assembly Hall, Makati City
• Three Squares Cafe Bar, Makati City
• Panaderya Toyo, Makati City
• Tsokolateria, Tagaytay City
• The After Hours, Makati City
• Angkan, BGC, Taguig City

☕️ PH Franchise Cafes

• Omotesando Koffee, Makati City (from Japan)
• 8 Bar Rockwell, Makati City
• The Coffee Academics, Makati City (from Hong Kong)
• Toby’s Estate, Makati City (from Australia)