Cover In San Juan City, all roads lead to Malagihay Cocktail Club
In San Juan City, all roads lead to Malagihay Cocktail Club
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The best bar is the one you keep coming back to—and in San Juan City, that bar is Malagihay Cocktail Club
Like many great things, Malagihay Cocktail Club wasn’t born from ambition but from necessity. Tucked away on the second storey of Mabuhay Craft Coffee, set in an old house, the bar was once a storage space—practical, unremarkable and equipped with a toilet that café guests downstairs occasionally excused themselves to. Eventually the question became obvious: if they’re already here, why not give them a reason to stay?
That is an honest expression of Malagihay—a neighbourhood cocktail club shaped by Filipino hospitality, that instinct to welcome people in and make them feel at home. It occupies a particular in-between; not quite home, but not quite “out” either. The kind of place you end up when you want company without occasion, when staying in feels too quiet and going out feels like too much. The “club” in its name has less to do with status than with belonging. “A neighbourhood cocktail bar is a place where people could feel and be more human,” says founder Ian Libang, a bartender with over a decade in the industry.
See also: San Juan neighbourhood guide: chef Neil Dy of Seva guides us through his city
Above The Atchalada, a refreshing carbonated drink of mezcal, atchara, IPA, Korean tomato gochujang, lacto-fermented green tomatoes and strawberry manzanilla sherry
Above Ian Libang, founder and beverage director of Malagihay Cocktail Club
The Atchalada, a refreshing carbonated drink of mezcal, atchara, IPA, Korean tomato gochujang, lacto-fermented green tomatoes and strawberry manzanilla sherry
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Before Malagihay, Libang won Asia Bar Battle in Singapore in 2018 and was named Philippine champion at the 2019 Campari Bartender Competition, representing the country in Milan. He served as The Spirits Library’s senior bartender, then headed north to develop bars in La Union before returning to set up The Bizarre Bar. This time, he asked himself what people actually want from a bar. Malagihay became his answer, a space where the quality of the experience is measured not only by what’s served, but by how people feel when they’re there.
To find Malagihay, one must pass through the café, slip down a worn alleyway and climb a winding staircase. The journey feels less like finding a hidden bar and more like being welcomed into someone’s private home, creating a sense not of exclusivity, but of discovery. A Filipino sala, reimagined as a cocktail club—the room in a home where people gather, eat, drink, tell stories and welcome others.
Read more: Beyond the margarita: 5 delicious tequila cocktails you should know
The sala-inspired interiors of Malagihay Cocktail Club—antique settees, warm lamp light and oversized speakers that set the tone for the evening ahead
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Upstairs, the space feels inherited rather than designed. Antique carved wooden settees with ornate mahogany frames and burgundy damask upholstery sit atop a patterned area rug—the kind of furniture that has lived in Filipino living rooms for decades. Small table lamps cast a warm glow. A vintage globe sits on a side shelf among other collected trinkets. Wooden lattice panels line the walls, while retro glass blocks line the counter. And then there are the speakers: oversized, custom, mounted prominently and making no apologies for their presence. “It looks like your lola’s living room,” Libang says, “if your lola is a little bit lit.”
Read more: Kiwot honey is the Filipino ingredient you’ve never heard of—Kaya Kusina is here to change that
Above Dipping Sauce: lambanog, sotol, white rum, dayap cordial, red onion shrub and cucumber
Above Salted Mango: gin, dried mango brine and mango vermouth
Dipping Sauce: lambanog, sotol, white rum, dayap cordial, red onion shrub and cucumber
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The Tagalog word malagihay has fallen out of everyday use, describing that perfect balance in-between: a little loose, a little warm, unhurried. Malagihay Cocktail Club didn’t invent the feeling; it just gave it an address. That same instinct runs through the cocktail programme, guided by what Libang calls a philosophy of feeling built around three ideas: Mood, Moment and Memory. Rather than starting with ingredients alone, each drink begins with a feeling, an experience or a familiar recollection. Filipino flavours and references are then translated into contemporary interpretations of classic cocktails.
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What’s a Filipino bar without pulutan? Locavore’s Mikel Zaguirre ensures everyone leaves the bar not only malagihay but well fed
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The Atchalada, for instance, fuses the michelada and the Filipino atchara in one refreshing concoction of mezcal, pickles, IPA and unexpected additions like gochujang and lacto-fermented tomatoes. Dipping Sauce—inspired by the sharp, sour sawsawan that comes with every skewer of kwek-kwek—blends lambanog, sotol and rum with dayap cordial, red onion shrub and cucumber. Salted Mango recalls the essential Filipino practice of enjoying unripe mangoes with salt, translated into a martini. Alongside the signatures, the menu also carries classics, mocktails, local beer and wine—a deliberate breadth to make sure there was something for everyone at the table.
Chef Kel Zaguirre—the chef behind Locavore and founder of Food Records Inc., which operates Mabuhay Craft Coffee, Malagihay Cocktail Club and Binondo Boys, a casual Filipino-Chinese eatery, among other upcoming concepts—develops the food programme along the same logic: pulutan, a true Filipino take on bar chow, built on familiar staples tweaked just enough to feel considered, without losing the ease of reaching across the table. Think lumpia stuffed with pork, shrimp and mushroom or fried chicken made even more devilish with a breading of Boy Bawang.
See also: 11 Philippine craft beer brands you should know—and where to find them
Above Founder and beverage director Ian Libang and the Malagihay team
Above The team at Malagihay—the kind of bar where the staff are as much a part of the experience as the drinks
Founder and beverage director Ian Libang and the Malagihay team
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Malagihay is built on the belief that craft should never overshadow connection—a bar designed first and foremost as a place to gather. Behind the counter, the team is quick with a joke and refreshingly unscripted, with service that feels like conversation rather than formality, aimed at turning first-timers into regulars. At 6pm, when the doors open, early-evening drinkers settle onto the settees under the lamplight for a first cocktail, the night still unhurried. By the wee hours, the bar is still going; it stays open until 4am, far later than the usual rhythm of San Juan and other cocktail bars, it welcomes bartenders from neighbouring bars and cities after service, last few guests in tow, looking for a nightcap. It has become the final stop before home, ending the night not with spectacle, but with the comfort of a room that already feels like yours.
A bar becomes truly special when it stops being just a place people visit and becomes a place they feel they belong. The best bar, Libang believes, isn’t the most awarded or the most talked-about. It is the one where guests decide to become regulars and leave feeling malagihay.
Visit Malagihay Cocktail Club at 2/F 193 A. Mabini Street, San Juan City. Follow @malagihaycocktailclub on Instagram for updates, events and reservations.
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About
Lauren’s love for food came much later in life than one would expect— an obsession awakened in the streets of Melbourne’s multicultural dining scene. Armed with this newfound passion, she returned to the Philippines determined to discover the best eats in her home country, with a personal advocacy to champion local cuisines and homegrown talent. Nothing is off-limits; if it’s delicious, it’s worth celebrating.
Work
As Tatler Dining associate editor, Lauren covers all things food and drink, from listing the latest openings in our monthly Dining Radar to interviewing chefs and bartenders about the biggest obstacles crippling the industry today. Beyond the digital space, she also organises Tatler Dining’s tentpole events, including Off Menu and Tatler Dining Kitchen, as well as the annual Tatler Best Philippines awards night and guide launch, detailing the best restaurants in the country.
For leads and event invites, contact her via lauren@tatlerphilippines.com or follow her on Instagram at @laurengolangco.
Photo: Ralph Mendo
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