The Best Places to Eat and Stay in the Philippines

An eight-course tasting menu built around fermentation and the lesser-known corners of the Philippine larder, filtered through a French sensibility. The name nods to "mestizo," which tells you everything about the chef's approach: half-French, half-Filipino, and not especially apologetic about either. It's a quiet, considered room in Karrivin Plaza where the cooking does the explaining, ingredient by unfamiliar ingredient.

A 20-seat contemporary tasting menu restaurant in Legazpi Village where the kitchen runs on a zero-waste, plant-forward philosophy without ever feeling preachy about it. The menu shifts constantly, pulling from local produce and whatever the chefs are currently obsessed with. Minimalist room, focused cooking, the kind of dinner where you eat things you couldn't have predicted ordering. The Michelin Guide has it on their radar.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the sea or the Cebu skyline from every oversized room, and the deep soaking tubs give you something to do while you decide which view you prefer. This design-hotel-hip resort stay sits inside a sprawling integrated complex on the south coast, with a casino, shopping, and restaurants including the theatrical Mott 32 all within reach whenever the pool loses its appeal.

A three-tiered infinity pool cascading into a private beach sets the tone at this full-service resort on Mactan Island, twenty minutes from Cebu's airport. The 40 private villas come with plunge pools and ocean views; another 250 rooms offer the same comforts with slightly thinner walls between you and your neighbors. Two restaurants, a beach club, a sports bar, and a 14-room spa ensure you never need a plan. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

Rooms here run large enough that you might forget you booked a beach resort and think you've moved in, with private balconies, soaking tubs, and garden or sea views. The six-room spa, kids' club, watersports, and a big pool cover every mood, and the dining swings from Nikkei to Mediterranean without apology. Selected by the Michelin Guide, it sits half an hour from the airport on a white-sand stretch of Mactan's coast.

Tagaytay is Manila's preferred escape when the city gets to be too much, cooler by several degrees and perched above Taal Lake. Anya is a 82-suite resort spread across manicured gardens, with rooms built around indigenous materials and Filipino craft. Chef Chele Gonzalez runs the signature restaurant, Samira. The Niyama Wellness Centre handles the yoga, retreats, and spa treatments, because you didn't drive an hour just to check email.

Three infinity pools face the Sulu Sea from a private white-sand cove that sits well clear of Boracay's busier strips. Crimson is a full-scale beach resort with a glass-walled pavilion cantilevered over the water, a spa, beach yoga, and a children's club built around a pirate ship, which covers most negotiations at check-in. Dining runs from a Latin grill to an all-day café to a beach club pulling in Japanese, Korean, and Indian menus.

Sitting directly on White Beach, this resort on Boracay puts you on the stretch of sand people actually come to the island for. Suites start around 40 square meters and climb from there into something closer to a serviced apartment, with separate living and dining areas, a balcony, and a private Jacuzzi. Six restaurants and bars, a rooftop lounge angled at the sunset, a large pool, a spa, and enough kids' programming to keep parents guilt-free.

Water cottages on stilts sit over Bacuit Bay, with limestone cliffs behind and 45 islands in front. This is a stylish, sustainable island resort on Lagen, part of the El Nido Resorts group, where rooms are built from antique Filipino hardwood and open onto private terraces. Sea kayaks and snorkeling gear pull guests out to the bay; lagoon tours and dive courses go further. The pool is four feet deep because the tree roots underneath had other plans.

Stilted cottages built directly over the water, thatched bungalows notched into the cliffside, and about fifty rooms total on a small forested island in Bacuit Bay. This is a resort in the quieter, more stripped-back sense of the word. Floors and walls run to native wood and bamboo, sliding doors open onto private patios, and the infinity pool faces a white sand beach calm enough for snorkeling. Windsurfing, hiking, and lagoon boating are all on offer, though the palm-shaded chaise longue makes a compelling counterargument.

A single forested hill rising out of the Palawan archipelago, reachable only by a half-hour boat ride from a very small airstrip. The resort's villas line a half-mile white-sand beach or climb above the jungle canopy, all with generous indoor-outdoor space and some with private plunge pools. Local materials keep the crisp, contemporary interiors from feeling airlifted in. The water does most of the heavy lifting: diving, kayaking, and paddling in a setting that barely seems plausible.

Sipalay sits on Negros Occidental's southwest coast, well outside the usual Philippine circuit, and Manami is the only luxury resort here, which gives it a certain quiet confidence. Eighteen villas are tucked into five hillside hectares where forest meets the Sulu Sea, with bamboo walls, pitched timber ceilings, and wide balconies facing ocean or jungle. The restaurant leans into Negrense cooking with Spanish threads, and the sunset deck is built around the trunks of living trees.

Tucked into the forest edge where Palawan's coastline goes quiet, this beach resort sits right on Maremegmeg Beach with every room angled toward the ocean and a private balcony for watching the sun drop into the sea. A 35-meter infinity pool and a beach bar handling tropical cocktails cover the evening agenda, while the restaurant runs Filipino and international food all day. El Nido's center is a short drive if you want to wander.

Nawa Wellness is a resort on a sleepy peninsula south of Manila built around Hilot, the ancient Filipino healing tradition, rather than around a pool bar and a gift shop. Rooms range from a colonial Manila-era house to thatched Malay cabanas, with a presidential villa sitting somewhere in the middle of generous gardens. The Panari Spa folds traditional Filipino practice into modern therapy, and the kitchen serves food that is, against the odds, both medicinal and delicious.

Jagged limestone towers rise just beyond the landscaped gardens at this Japanese-minimalist resort, which sits inside the protected Lio Tourism Estate on the northern edge of Palawan. The H Hotel Group and Piece brand partnership keeps things crisp and spare, with sunlit rooms designed to dissolve into the surroundings rather than compete with them. Sustainability is part of the operating logic, not just the branding. El Nido's clearest waters are close.

The limestone cliffs that ring El Nido show up in the restaurant's design, which sets the tone for a hotel that treats its surroundings as the whole point. Fifty rooms with breezy balconies, locally sourced materials, and clever lighting give you a comfortable base for days out on the water, with the Sea Tree Spa and a poolside bar waiting when you return. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Station 1 is where White Beach quiets down, and The Lind takes full advantage with a prime beachfront position and direct sand access. It's a lifestyle resort with large rooms, all balconied, done in soft curves and enough color to keep the neutrals honest, with Malin + Goetz in the bathroom as a subtle flex. Multiple pools are scattered across the property, and a rooftop infinity pool hangs over the water. Service runs warm and unpretentious, which is the Filipino way.