October 2026 Dining Radar: new restaurants, cafés and bars in Metro Manila and beyond

Location: YL Holdings Building, Legazpi Village, Makati City

Freaquency sits across the hall from Sault as a cosy lounge for apéro, after-dinner drinks or a slower evening out, while doubling as a gallery for local artists, currently showing work by Bjorn Calleja. Tuck into a dry-aged burger that cleverly repurposes the pellicle of Sault’s tomahawk, or graze on smaller items like the chicken nuggets, which come with chive and parsley labneh and caviar. Coffee, cocktails and a chocolate tenerina with smoked vanilla ice cream and seasonal fruit jam round out the menu.

Location: Lepanto Building, Paseo de Roxas, Makati City

National Bakeshop, a new concept from Lowbrow Casual Restaurants, is a pandesal-focused restaurant with a deliberately short list of six breads. The pandesal is butter-rich, with a thin, lightly fried crust and a darker bake—“when we run out, that’s it for the day,” the team says. The favourite is the calamansi pandesal, which came about when calamansi happened to be on the table. Family-style Filipino dishes round out the menu, alongside coffee and a few speciality drinks put together with consultant Niko Tiutan, Tatler Best Rising Star 2026 and beverage director of Ito. The space is a restored brutalist shell by National Artist Gabriel Formoso, designed with Brian Ver.

Location: Serendra, BGC, Taguig City

Torikizoku started in Osaka and has grown into a yakitori chain with more than 600 locations across Japan, its bright yellow signboard a familiar sight in busy neighbourhoods. The Serendra branch is its first in the Philippines. The pitch is simple: freshly grilled skewers, good drinks and a lively room made for gathering. In Manila, that means heart skewers in a sweet-spicy sauce, salted tail that lets its fat stand on its own and the classic breast and thigh. It is a natural after-hours stop, the place to end the night with a few more pints of Sapporo or a highball.

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Location: The Podium, Mandaluyong City

Bangkok’s Adam n Eve has opened its first branch outside Thailand, and its first in the Philippines. The frozen yoghurt is made with real Greek yoghurt, with zero added sugar or preservatives, and guests choose their own sauces and toppings. Behind it are Rarin Tumwattana and Natee Charussuriyong, friends who met as students in Boston, who launched the ice cream brand Guss Damn Good in 2015 and introduced Adam n Eve in early 2025. Tumwattana is particular about ingredients, and an olive oil she discovered in Sicily now has a place in the offering. Try the signature Adam n Eve, which layers its thick, creamy Greek froyo with Planeta EVOO, wild honey and a touch of salt.

Related: Where to get frozen yoghurt in Metro Manila: 9 top picks from Tatler’s editors and readers

Location: Tambayan Food Hall, NAIA Terminal 3, Pasay City

M Dining + Bar’s chef Tom Bascon named Dodong’s after his late father, Oscar, whom family and friends called Dodong, Bisaya for a young man. When the chance arose to open a regional food concept at NAIA Terminal 3, “it was a no-brainer to name it after him,” says Bascon. The menu starts short with five dishes for now: chicken inasal, kansi served as a stew rather than a soup, laswa, linutik and adobo flakes. Laswa nods to a dish his father ate twice a week, while the adobo flakes riff on a favourite from Dodong’s Fast Break, the turo-turo stall Oscar ran in a Bacolod mall in the 90s

Location: The Balmori Chef’s Table, Rockwell Center, Makati City

Nayam is the second season of Mrs. Saldo’s pop-up at The Balmori Chef’s Table, running from October 16 until January 5. The name means grace, happiness and a guiding light, and chef Rhea Rizzo calls it “an extension of everything we believe at Mrs. Saldo’s”. Her menu, shaped by her journey through Asia and the West, borrows across borders, with bagoong in Korean fried chicken, chicken liver inasal on banh mi toast and crispy coconut saba beside Goan curry salmon. For dessert, indulge in chai ice cream with saffron anglaise and an Earl Grey and chocolate cake with Lapsang souchong meringue.

See also: The Philippine Cocktail Fiesta heads to Cebu this November 13 to 15! Here’s what to expect

Location: Estancia Mall, Pasig City

Safe to say Allen Buhay and Renz Nasara know their way around a pie. Buhay co-founded Wildflour and is now the Bounty Group’s VP for dine-in operations, while Nasara is the pizzaiolo, and the two have been making pizza for about eight years. They open Pattie Pie at Estancia Mall with a colourful, retro diner look and two styles of sourdough pizza, both made from dough fermented for 48 hours. Wood-fired pizzas include a blistered margherita with Benguet cherry tomatoes, Bacolod stracciatella and fresh basil, while the cast-iron pizzas, a nod to the hearty pan pizza most Filipinos grew up with, include the PB&J of pepperoni, bacon, jalapeño and tomato sauce. Also on the menu: battered and fried Mojo-jojos with homemade ranch, prosciutto with housemade potato chips and pickled peppers, strip steak, tiger prawns and Tita’s Bolognese, rigatoni with kielbasa and mozzarella. Wash it all down with some kalimotxo or an Aperol spritz.

Location: Acacia Drive, Filinvest Mimosa+ Leisure City, Clark Freeport Zone

Chef Carlos Villaflor, executive sous chef at Tatler Best Innovation 2026 winner Gallery by Chele, puts his own name on a restaurant for the first time with Recado. It refuses to pick a single region, so one meal can run from coastal kinilaw to kare-kare to street food. Familiar dishes get a technical reworking: sinuglaw pairs cured tuna with grilled pork belly, mango and chicharon; chicken adobo comes in the form of tacos; and the bibingka cheesecake layers queso de bola chantilly, pili nuts and cured egg yolk. The bar follows a similar ethos, mixing Filipino ingredients into contemporary cocktails.

Location: Kiwami at Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City; Alabang Town Center, Muntinlupa City; Mall of Asia, Pasay City

Combining the Japanese words ro (hearth) and en (feast), Roen is the newest brand at Kiwami, The Standard Group’s multi-kitchen Japanese concept. It was developed in collaboration with chef Yuta Saito, Japanese-born and French-trained, who pairs charcoal grilling with sauces of his own making. Two grills split the work between yakitori and large sharing plates, both fired with bamboo charcoal. Signatures include pompano with miso lemon butter, butabara with garlic lime sauce, hanger steak with chimichurri and tebasaki dressed in onion ranch. Roen is now open at Kiwami Alabang Town Center and Mall of Asia, and the Bonifacio High Street branch opens on October 29.

Location: Rockwell, Makati City

Sebastian’s is the Antonio’s Group’s all-day restaurant in Rockwell, named after Sebastian “Basti” Escalante, now the Group’s director of business development. Breakfast favourites run until noon, followed by an extensive menu that includes oysters, roast lamb chops, a burger, spaghetti Bolognese and adobo. But if you ask Basti, it’s the steak tartare, Manang Myrna’s sinigang and steak frites that best capture the restaurant’s personality.

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August 2026 Dining Radar: new restaurants, cafés and bars in Metro Manila