The 100 Best Places in the Philippines

Pork barbecue skewers made from three cuts and finished in bone broth land here as a philosophical statement about Filipino street food. Toyo Eatery is a contemporary Filipino restaurant where Jordy Navarra, who came up at The Fat Duck and Bo Innovation, builds tasting menus around local terroir and folk culture. A Michelin star sits comfortably alongside dishes that nod to childhood songs and sari-sari snacks, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

Wicker chairs, woven light fittings, and hand-painted ceramics set the mood before a single dish arrives. Celera is a fine dining restaurant on the third floor of a Makati building, making a case for modern Filipino cuisine through fermentation, local sourcing, and old preservation methods reframed as something quietly thrilling. It holds a Michelin star and a spot on Asia's 50 Best list. Dress like you mean it.

An eight-course tasting menu in Makati that holds two Michelin stars and resists easy categorization. Chef Josh Boutwood, who trained under Raymond Blanc and did time at Noma, builds around Filipino seasonal ingredients without ever landing on a single continent. Crab fat broth arrives in a shell; colourful powders finish plates that are as precise as they are personal. The cooking is formally ambitious, the biography behind it genuinely hard to summarize, which is probably the point.

The four-story lobby atrium, with its sunburst sculpture and cascading entrance waterfall, sets the tone for this Forbes Five Star hotel in Makati's central business district. Two towers, curved marble staircases, tufted chairs, and potted palms give the whole thing a grand-hotel-that-means-it seriousness. Guests here tend to dress for the lobby rather than through it, which tells you everything about the register.

Marble bathrooms stocked with Le Labo and floor-to-ceiling windows over the Makati skyline set the tone at this luxury tower hotel in the city's financial district, which holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star. Rooms run large and the pool and spa do what Fairmont pools and spas do. The quiet bonus is access to the Raffles next door, including its quietly legendary Writers Bar, which makes afternoon tea feel like an occasion.

A 32-suite luxury hotel sharing a tower with the Fairmont in Makati's financial district, Raffles draws the stock-exchange crowd by week and mall-crawlers by weekend. The Greenbelt shopping complex is next door, and the city's bar scene is a short ride away. Service runs to the famously attentive Raffles style, unhurried and quietly personal. The hotel holds a Forbes Four Star rating.

About 80 kilometers from Manila, this Michelin-starred contemporary Spanish restaurant sits on nine hectares of open fields, its minimalist design nodding quietly to Taal Volcano on the horizon. A Spanish chef runs the kitchen, flying in ingredients from Spain to anchor dishes like house-aged Wagyu ham and roasted suckling pig. The drive alone is a commitment, which seems to put everyone inside in a remarkably agreeable mood.

Chele González trained at El Bulli and El Celler de Can Roca, which explains why a Filipino fine dining room in Bonifacio Global City feels like it has something to prove and the technique to prove it. The team tours the archipelago collecting regional inspiration, then translates it into a tasting menu format that holds a Michelin star. The setting reads more relaxed than the pedigree suggests, which either puts you at ease or makes you overdressed.

Eight courses built from a cuisine that usually feeds a hundred people at once is the central tension at Hapag, a fine dining tasting-menu restaurant in Rockwell holding a Michelin star. The kitchen distills whole roasts, braises, and communal feasts into something intimate and precisely plated, tracing the Philippines' tropical regions through the collective memory of a team of local chefs. Reservation-only, dress accordingly.

Tucked inside Karrivin Plaza, Inatô has the hush of a cave and the warmth of somewhere you weren't meant to find. It's an intimate tasting-menu restaurant built around "bahala na," a Filipino phrase that roughly means leave it to fate, which here translates to surrendering the menu choices entirely to the team. Seasonal Filipino ingredients anchor the progression, with chicken, fish, and pork doing most of the work. It holds a Michelin star.

A Forbes Four Star hotel rising above Bonifacio Global City, the Shangri-La The Fort is where multinational executives and weekend escapers end up when they want to stay in BGC rather than just pass through it. The gym alone outdoes most standalone facilities in the city. The neighborhood is Metro Manila's most walkable, so the outside is nearly as useful as the inside, which is saying something given what's inside.

Gold-threaded wallpaper in the guest rooms and a gilded entrance set the tone at this Forbes Five Star hotel inside the City of Dreams Manila complex on the bay in Parañaque. The architect behind the design has a following, and the finish work earns the attention. Manila Bay sunsets visible from here are the kind that make people miss flights, which is convenient given the airports are minutes away.

A Swarovski chandelier greets you at the entrance, which sets the tone for what follows at this all-suite Forbes Five Star hotel tower inside Solaire Resort Entertainment City. Every room is a suite, the design came from a Las Vegas and Macau casino hotel specialist, and the staff uniforms were done by Filipino fashion designer Rajo Laurel. It sits along Manila Bay, and the gambling is right downstairs if that's the draw.

Nobu Matsuhisa's hotel brand landed in Asia first right here, tucked inside the City of Dreams casino complex in Parañaque. The rooms carry that spare, Japanese-inflected calm you'd expect from someone whose business partner once waited five years just to get a yes. There's a Nobu restaurant on-site, plus a spa and outdoor pool for when the casino floor gets to be a lot. Forbes Four Star.

The lobby doesn't begin at street level: it starts 24 floors up, sitting atop a mixed-use tower in the Ortigas business district, which earns Marco Polo its "sky hotel" nickname. This Forbes Four Star property leans into the altitude with art by Filipino painter Jinggoy Buensuceso displayed across its floors, grounding an otherwise very vertical hotel in something local. Business travelers fill most of the rooms, but the setting makes it feel less transactional than that.

Technically an airport hotel, though few properties wearing that label share a 15-acre casino complex with Crown Towers and Nobu as neighbors. The Hyatt Regency Manila at City of Dreams holds a Forbes Four Star rating and 362 rooms that run genuinely large by any standard. The staff's reputation for meeting every request without apparent strain is the kind of thing guests mention unprompted, which says something.

A 38-story hotel resort and casino in Quezon City that leads with its restaurants rather than its gaming floor, which is a choice. Four levels of casino, 526 rooms, and a dining program built to match the area's serious food culture. The Forbes Four Star property was designed by Habitus Design Group, and the whole thing feels less spectacle-driven than its sister resort, more attuned to the neighborhood it landed in.

A golden skybridge connects two wings of this 993-room resort and casino on the Entertainment City strip, just minutes from the airport. Marble interiors loaded with jewels, precious stones, and plum-and-blush color throughout set the tone before you've even checked in. It holds a Forbes Five Star. Manila Bay sits outside; inside, there's enough going on across 108 acres that leaving feels optional.

A grand staircase and live orchestral music greet you the moment you walk into this luxury hotel sitting in the middle of Makati's financial district. The carpeted hush of the lobby feels deliberately engineered to make you forget the mall traffic outside, and it works. Locals and travelers alike treat it as a refuge, settling into plush chairs with pastries and tea while the city carries on without them.

The elevator opens directly onto the lobby, and Manila Bay fills the window before you've taken a step. This luxury hotel on the Pasay waterfront is shaped to evoke a yacht, which sounds like marketing until you're watching leisure boats drift past at golden hour and start to believe it. The 347 rooms sit above a high-end retail complex, so shopping is an elevator ride away for those who need that particular amenity.

The name means "sound" in Japanese, and the all-vinyl playlist is not a gimmick. Oto is a cocktail bar in Poblacion where the menu runs from daiquiris and dirty martinis through to signatures that fold in tamarind syrup or wheat beer, and a riff on the Breakfast Martini that nods to Salvatore Calabrese. The room is striking enough that the drinks have to compete, and the drinks are up for it.

Melbourne is the unlikely muse for this all-day café and cocktail lounge tucked into the Alabang commercial sprawl. The drinks menu is illustrated like a coffee-table book and written like one too, walking you through strawberry distillates and acid blends without making you feel like you need a lab coat to order. A Difford's Guide pick and a The 50 Discovery selection, it leans modern and precise in a neighborhood that doesn't always expect that.

The airstrip on Pamalican Island exists for one reason: getting you to this resort. Amanpulo holds a Michelin Key and occupies an entire private island in the Philippines, ringed by coral reef and reachable only by charter flight the hotel arranges from Manila. Casitas follow the local bahay kubo style, thatched roofs and all, with bathrooms nearly as large as the bedroom. Diving, snorkeling, and windsurfing are on offer, but the reef mostly just sits there looking unreasonably good.

A wooden pagoda rising from a tiny offshore islet announces this barefoot, sustainably built resort on Siargao's southern coast. Villas are freestanding and generously spaced, with private porches and tropical gardens; the bathrooms are so lavish the designers apparently added benches so you'd linger. A circular bar, a sunken lounge, an infinity pool, and hammock pods hung from coconut trees round things out. It holds a Michelin Key.

The name means "by hand," and the pizza here takes that literally, a contemporary Neapolitan style with a pronounced, well-leavened crust that stays light enough to eat without regret. It sits in a mall food hall, which sounds like a setup for disappointment, but a spot on 50 Top Pizza's Asia-Pacific and World lists tends to complicate that assumption. Pasta and risotto round out the menu, all at prices that won't require a quiet moment alone afterward.

A small-format pizzeria in Salcedo Village where the menu runs through several distinct dough styles at once, because committing to just one felt like leaving options on the table. The team behind it includes a dough obsessive, a wine-by-the-glass obsessive, and a chef shaped by years in Japanese kitchens, which explains the range. Ranked fifth in Asia-Pacific and 28th on 50 Top Pizza World, if you need the shorthand.

The sliding wooden doors that conceal the bar during daylight hours open at night to reveal what is, by day, an architectural firm. That dual life shapes everything: the cocktail bar keeps the office's concrete-and-glass bones and its minimal, industrial calm. It sits inside Lamp Quarters, a retail complex in Marikina City, and works best for small groups settling into corners that, a few hours earlier, someone was billing clients from.

The infinity pool at this beachfront resort sits at the tip of the Punta Engaño peninsula, so the water just bleeds into the sea beyond it. Dusit Thani is a long-running Thai luxury brand, and the house style, warm formality softened by genuine ease, translates well to Mactan Island. Rooms are bright and generous, balconies face the sunset, and the Namm Spa delivers exactly what a Thai hotel spa promises. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A pedestrian bridge connects the lobby to Terminal 3, which sounds like a consolation prize until you see the four outdoor pools, the whiskey and tea bar, and the Quan Spa. This is a full-luxury hotel that happens to sit inside the Newport World Resorts complex, with casinos, restaurants, and a performing arts theater nearby. Rooms run minimalist, with freestanding tubs and floor-to-ceiling windows over the Manila skyline.

The Heavenly Bed is a Westin trademark, but the rooms here are generous enough that you might not leave yours for a while anyway. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook Ortigas Center, natural textures and greenery soften the commercial-district energy, and a lavender sleep balm appears at turndown like a gentle hint. The hotel also runs a pet-friendly program, so your dog gets a bed and a menu too, which feels either charming or slightly humbling depending on your room.

Perched on Roxas Boulevard facing Manila Bay, this grand hotel wears its Art Deco bones and Filipino-Spanish heritage without apology, which puts it firmly in a different conversation from the boutique crowd. A member of Accor's MGallery collection, it keeps the classic-hotel atmosphere while adding Bose sound systems and Nespresso machines to the rooms. The rooftop restaurant overlooks the bay, and the subterranean Ruby Wong's Godown handles the glamorous bar shift below.

The casino is the main event, but the hotel towers above it in more ways than one. Two skyscrapers divide the rooms, with the newer Sky Tower angling toward guests who prefer their soaking tubs very deep and their square footage generous. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Manila Bay in both buildings, and the pool deck, Broadway theater, and restaurant lineup give the whole compound a Vegas-in-the-tropics energy that it leans into without apology.