The Philippine dining scene is welcoming a fresh wave of restaurants, cafés and bars this September, with new concepts putting a distinctly personal spin on everything from cocktails and Turkish cuisine to Filipino ingredients, wellness-focused food and specialty tea.
This month’s Dining Radar features nine new places worth adding to your list, including a cosmetics brand’s first venture into food and beverage, a phone-free speakeasy in Makati, a new cocktail destination in Davao and a limited-time sushi residency at a five-star hotel.
1. Analog
Located at One Rockwell in Makati, Analog brings together cocktails, coffee, food and music around the idea of slowing down in a pre-digital world.
Created through a partnership between Donny Pangilinan and Forefront Lifestyle Group, the concept is divided into three distinct spaces.
There is a speakeasy where guests leave their phones before entering, an apartment café that transforms into a private party venue at night, and a storefront combining a book and vinyl shop with a takeaway café.
Warm, minimalist interiors complete the deliberately distraction-free atmosphere, encouraging guests to put their devices away and simply spend time with one another.
2. Matter by Issy
Homegrown cosmetics brand Issy is stepping into the food-and-beverage world with Matter, a hybrid retail space and café in Legazpi Village.
Located on Legazpi Street, the 150-square-metre concept is designed to operate outside the traditional mall environment associated with the beauty brand.
Matter divides its menu into classics, signatures and experiments, with playful combinations designed to challenge expectations.
One experimental chocolate cookie combines strawberry jam, blue cheese and prosciutto, while another drink takes inspiration from puto bumbong and summer street coolers.
The space was designed with flexibility in mind and can also host pop-ups, creative collaborations and brand activations.
3. Astro
At NBS Park in Mandaluyong, Astro has built an entire dining concept around milk.
The restaurant began with a practical problem: producing enough local butter for another restaurant meant handling large quantities of milk, leaving plenty of by-products such as whey.
Instead of treating those ingredients as waste, chef Kelvin Pundavela turned them into the foundation of Astro’s menu.
Whey is used to hydrate the restaurant’s focaccia, while cultured butter appears in its pan-fried labahita meunière.
Even dessert gets the dairy treatment, with brown butter chocolate miso cookies served alongside a milk slushie.
The drinks follow the same philosophy, including a Milk Fizz made with yoghurt, skim milk and soda water.
4. Zephyria
In Pasig, former Shangri-La beverage manager Volkan Ibil has opened Zephyria, a deeply personal concept inspired by his hometown of Bodrum in Turkey.
Run with his wife and co-owner Mica Ibil, the bar combines Turkish and Mediterranean flavours with cocktails built around ingredients sourced directly from Turkey.
Traditional techniques such as fermentation and pickling play a major role in the drinks.
Among the creations is the Halikarnas latte, combining Irish whiskey, house-made Turkish coffee liqueur, Turkish coffee and tahini cream.
The food menu follows the same home-style philosophy, with dishes such as Çökertme Kebabı and Köpoğlu.
Rather than positioning itself as a conventional cocktail bar or restaurant, Zephyria aims to recreate the feeling of gathering around a table in Bodrum.
5. Manila Sushi Chef at Grand Hyatt Manila
Japanese food lovers have another reason to visit Grand Hyatt Manila in BGC, where its Round Bar has been transformed into a 12-seat Edomae sushi counter.
The 10-week residency features chef Yuki Anzai, who moved to the Philippines to establish his own private dining concept under Manila Sushi Chef.
Ingredients are sourced from Tokyo’s Toyosu Market and change according to the season.
The intimate counter format gives diners a front-row view of the chef’s work, with only two seatings offered each night from Wednesday to Saturday.
Early creations have included torched kinmedai with uni and aji nigiri finished with spring onions and ginger.
6. Flora Tea Bar
Greenhills gets a new destination dedicated entirely to tea with Flora Tea Bar on Annapolis Street.
The concept grew out of Bar.Flora in Quezon City, which originally combined gin and tea.
As the team’s interest in tea deepened, the beverage gained its own dedicated space.
Flora Tea Bar operates as a tea house during the day and becomes a tea bar at night.
Its collection includes loose-leaf teas sourced directly from producers, alongside tea wines and cocktails.
The concept is designed to explore tea beyond the usual cup, drawing inspiration from tea cultures across Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Japan.
7. Sweetwater
Davao’s cocktail scene gets a major new addition with Sweetwater, a bar located inside Huckleberry Southern Kitchen & Bar.
Created in response to growing demand for more sophisticated cocktails in the city, Sweetwater takes inspiration from water in its different forms.
Its cocktails include Still or Sparkling, made with dry vermouth, rose buds, Chardonnay reduction and green tea tonic, as well as a Rainwater Martini featuring vodka, corn tea-infused dry vermouth, Benedictine, absinthe and caper brine.
The Salt Water takes a more savoury approach with mezcal, red miso, sesame oil and sweet vermouth.
Food is also part of the experience, with options ranging from a deviled eggs sampler to hamburg omurice with Japanese curry.
8. Tuck’s Bar
Tuck’s Bar in Legazpi Village combines a bistro by day with a sophisticated bar by night.
Its menu takes familiar dishes and drinks into more unexpected territory, including a foie Sazerac, saffron sidecar, white mushroom lasagna with mascarpone foam and even chicken nuggets served with caviar.
The drinks and food programme was developed by Kyle Ley, known for his work at Refuge, Blanc and Spritz, alongside Angelica Bautista, who oversees the wine selection.
The bar also houses an 800-bottle cellar featuring everything from lesser-known spirits to numbered bottles.
A bottle-keep programme adds another layer for regular customers looking to build a personal collection at the bar.
9. Wonderfull
In Muntinlupa, Wonderfull approaches dining through a more health-conscious lens.
The restaurant grew from a deeply personal family experience after co-founder Berna Garriz lost relatives to cancer and her husband, Anton, was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
The experience led the family to rethink how they ate, focusing on more vegetables, less processed food and fermentation.
That philosophy eventually became the foundation of Wonderfull.
The menu includes a pancake made with amazake, a fermented rice drink that provides natural sweetness, served with salted maple brown butter.
For a more substantial meal, diners can choose a power bowl with roasted vegetables, miso-glazed corn, chickpeas and a poached egg, paired with either salad, rice or quinoa and a choice of grass-fed steak or tofu kimchi.
House-brewed kombucha is also available in flavours including pineapple ginger and berry sangria.
A new wave of dining across the Philippines
September’s lineup reflects just how varied the country’s dining scene has become.
Some concepts are built around nostalgia and technology-free experiences, while others are driven by personal heritage, sustainability, wellness or a desire to explore ingredients in unconventional ways.
From a Turkish-inspired home in Pasig and an experimental café by a beauty brand to a new Davao cocktail bar and an intimate sushi counter in BGC, these nine openings show that Philippine dining continues to move well beyond the traditional restaurant format.
For diners looking for something new this month, September’s radar offers plenty of reasons to explore.
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