In Manila, Philippines, the Local Cocktail Scene Is Taking Hold in Unexpected Places

22.10.2024 - 16:11 / cntraveler.com

Manila, Philippines, is in a continuous state of flux, but Makati Central Square or MCS, dubbed “Manila’s most eccentric mall,” remains a constant. It’s a hodge-podge establishment strewn with shops selling cell phone accessories, children’s toys, guns, secondhand clothing, and crystals; located inside Little Tokyo—a neighborhood with a cluster of Japanese izakaya. It’s been an eccentric fixture in Makati City, Metro Manila’s central business district, since the 1980s.

“It feels immortal to me,” Kyle Quismundo who founded Big Fuzz, a hidden craft cocktail bar in the neighborhood tells me. “The whole area hasn’t changed in two decades.” Well, except for one thing: It's now serving up great cocktails.

After a brief stint as a bartender at Fat Cat, a buzzy jazz cocktail bar at MCS, Quismundo knew he wanted to open his own joint but one focused on rock n’ roll, inside the neighboring and equally iconic Mile Long property, a massive complex that used to be a popular business and creative business hub up until 2017. After a long legal battle between the government and a development corporation owned by a powerful Manila family, the Mile Long property fell into disrepair. Now, the half-vacant building is peppered with small Japanese restaurants and hostess bars—and, as of October 2023, Big Fuzz, Quismundo’s cozy but sophisticated bar serving drinks heavily inspired by New York City’s cocktail renaissance.

Big Fuzz and Fat Cat are part of a new wave of bars that emerged in Manila after the pandemic, and have helped transform its nascent cocktail scene—once concentrated in Makati and Bonifacio Global City, the commercial and financial hearts of the city—into a thriving one that is spreading out to metro Manila’s more residential districts. It first began with Blind Pig inside Legazpi Village in Makati, a classic speakeasy modeled after New York City’s famed Milk & Honey, which is often credited with launching the craft cocktail movement in the US in the early 2000s. Blind Pig was the first high-end cocktail bar to open in Manila in 2011. But while Blind Pig paved the way for the cocktail scene in Manila, it was The Curator Coffee & Cocktails that officially put the city on the region’s nightlife map.

Established in Legazpi Village by David Ong and partners Jericson Co and Bernice Tiu, Curator is what Ong calls, “a love song to specialty coffee and craft cocktail.” What initially started as a mom-and-pop bar and coffee shop equipped with a few plastic chairs, Curator has now become Manila’s premier cocktail bar, landing on the prestigious Asia’s 50 Best Bars list eight times since it opened in December 2013. The bar is intimate and understated with a tightly designed menu that keeps the place packed even during