Arts & Culture

4 Restaurants in Cebu You Probably Haven’t Tried Yet

We check out some of the newest restaurants in the city that will inspire your wanderlust.

One can never go to too many restaurants. It’s always fun and exciting to try new flavors, especially for foodies like the Cebuanos. With that in mind, we give you 4 new restaurants you should try. You can thank us later.

Palermo

by Patty Taboada

You can never really go wrong with Italian food, so heading out to Mactan Island for some pizza and pasta is worth the long drive, especially if you’re going to Palermo at Plantation Bay Resort & Spa. For someone who has made that journey twice already, I can make this statement with confidence.

My first time around wasn’t completely intentional: A friend and I planned to try the resort’s nightly themed dinner buffet, but the terrible traffic on that particular payday Friday caused us to miss it altogether. The night wasn’t a total waste, however, as opting to dine at Palermo instead made for a more intimate and wonderful dinner experience. Back then, the restaurant had wood furnishings and red terra cotta tiles which, along with the red-and-white checkered tablecloths, gave off a rustic trattoria vibe.

Charming as it was, Plantation Bay decided to give Palermo a new and contemporary look to appeal to more diners. The result is a stylishly casual restaurant with cool gray walls to balance out the warmth of the wooden accents. Lights were also significantly dimmed, so the stained glass details stand out even more. All of these, general manager Efren Belarmino explains, are proudly Cebu-made.

As for the menu, it was heartening to know that despite the design overhaul, Palermo has retained many of its tried-and-tested favorites, while welcoming new additions. Their Hot and Spicy Gambas are a crowd favorite, and the roasted bell peppers are an interesting combination of soft and spicy sweet. The Jamon Bellota, made with free-range Iberian pigs fattened on acorns and cured for up to three years, also proved to be quite the hit. There are several options for their pizzas, pastas and steak. The blue cheese lover in me immediately went for the Fusilli Con Gorgonzola. The macadamia nuts added texture to the otherwise creamy sauce with that unique blue cheese kick. Managing editor Shari Quimbo opted for the Rib Eye Steak with Potato Wedges—a hearty dish that’s sure to be a crowd pleaser. All of these went down quite well with our wine.

Everything was so rich and filling that it was hard to make room for dessert, and it’s quite a challenge to pass up on Palermo’s delicious treats. The Banana Burnt Butterscotch Tart, also known as the Triple B, was a deliciously deadly treat, with a mix of flavors and textures. The Gelato Alla Menta—mint ice cream with chocolate chips in an almond basket—is also a must-try.

As far as Italian places go, there are a lot of choices within the city. But when you want to take the extra mile, you’ll find that Palermo in Plantation Bay is a hidden gem that’s worth the visit.

Plantation Bay Resort & Spa

Mactan Island, Lapu-Lapu City

6332. 505 9800

plantationbay.com

K-Pub BBQ

by Shari Quimbo

I confess, I was one of the many who went through a kpop phase. For a good two years after college, I was mesmerized by the bright colors, synchronized dance sequences and surprisingly catchy beats that seemed to be one of Seoul’s major exports. I got over that phase (thankfully) but there are a few things that stuck—a fascination with their beauty products, a general compulsion to make faces for pictures, and a deep-rooted romance with Korean barbecue.

Maybe I’m just a meat-lover or perhaps I’ve seen way too many TV series where the leading man feeds a lettuce-wrapped serving of samgyeopsal to his lady; but there’s something about a well-grilled piece of meat that appeals to me. Which is why, not surprisingly, when KPub’s Meat-All-You-Can menus arrived in Cebu, I found myself more than a little excited.

KPub BBQ opened its first outlet in Bonifacio Global City in 2013, and it’s been expanding its vibrant and fun way of Korean dining around the country since. “We’re happy to bring the concept of KPub to Cebu, especially now that Korea is becoming a favorite dining destination of Cebuanos,” says president and proprietor George Pua. “KPub brings in the vibrant food and culture for the local market to experience, and will be a welcome and unique addition to Cebu’s growing culinary landscape.”

While the restaurant has secluded VIP sections and an al fresco area, most of the restaurant is the main dining hall. Glossy marble-esque tables with built-in grills are arranged around a stage and three large screens that have, you guessed it, kpop music videos on loop. The playful songs seem to solidify the experience, especially when you take the waitstaff’s military jackets with golden epaulets in consideration.

KPub has four different packages for diners to choose from, all of which offer a variety of Korean side dishes and unlimited portions of meat which you grill at your table. There’s the Eat & Run package at P499 for an hour of grilling, which includes beef sukiyaki, pork belly, Korean-style bacon, marinated pork belly in sweet and spicy sauce, marinated pork chop, marinated chicken in sweet and spicy sauce and marinated chicken in sweet soy sauce. The Eat & Run Level Up at P699 includes all of the same dishes, plus garlic butter shrimp, marinated fish fillet, japchae, fish tofu, calamari, lamb chorizo and pizza. The No Limits package at P899 with unlimited grilling time, includes premium beef selections such as So Galbi (marinated beef short rib), L-A Galbi (marinated cross-cut beef short rib), So Bulgogi (marinated beef slice in sweet soy sauce), and Dwaeji Bulgogi (marinated pork slice in sweet soy sauce). If you’re really feeling indulgent, though, get the To The Max package—at P999, you get everything mentioned above, plus salmon belly, salmon steak, fresh prawns, crab sticks, tempura platter, seafood pizza, seafood kimbab, seafood japchae, fried dumplings, assorted vegetables and fried spring rolls.

Of course, for those who are a bit more conscientious about their food intake, they can order a la carte or sample KPub’s version of Korean chicken. Oppa! Chicken offers selections that are fried twice—the traditional Korean way which makes the skin more crispy—and comes in various flavors. The Original, Soy and Garlic, and Sweet and Spicy are surely flavorful, but my dining companions all agreed that the Snowing Cheese rose higher in taste than the rest.

This I can assure you—when you choose to eat at KPub BBQ, you are going to leave feeling very stuffed. With the amount of food their packages include, there is just no other way to it. Their incredibly delicious offerings and the very helpful staff make it an easy dining experience. In fact, if I could have grown another stomach, all the meat that I could would have been a lot more.

2F Terraces, Ayala Center Cebu

032 410 7590, 410 8592

[FB] KpubBBqTheTerracesCebu

Señor Kimchi

by Michael Karlo Lim

I’d reference the migratory clichés of Mexicans and Koreans, if only us Pinoys were immune to the same. But, no. If anything, there are more similarities among Mexicans, Koreans and Pinoys than meets the eye. Across the board, there’s fantastical religiosity, extended families more knotted than their declared tightly knit, some generational and cultural scarring from some or several foreign occupations, what appears to be contentment with discontent and other sweeping generalizations. That last one was a disclaimer. Across the border, the American Dream. Of course, there’s the love for food. I’ll admit I thread myself through the uncomfortable knots at family gatherings only for the good stuff.

Downtown LA comes down to town via Señor Kimchi, one of the first purveyors of the MexiKor food trend on the island. Fusion cuisine can quickly morph into confusion but Mexican and Korean seem to marry well with similarities in punch and layered flavors. Both intricately layered and spiced, the divide is set between the earthier in the former to the tart and funky of the latter.

Extra large brown mushrooms are stuffed with crabmeat and cream cheese, battered and deep-fried, split, sprinkled with cilantro and drizzled with homemade spicy aioli in their Mushroom Poppers. The blank slate earthiness of the mushrooms make for a great base for the savory cheese and the briny kani. Frying made it golden; cilantro anchored Asia with the aioli putting it along the spice trade route of old. Easily my personal favorite, it’s aptly named as there is a tendency to just keep popping one piece after another into your mouth.

A global nod to the fusions come by way of the Pandesal Sliders, among their house specials. The everyday-everyman explodes with baby spring onions, shredded greens and local tomato slices topped with spicy aioli and your choice of meat—in our case, Bulgogi Beef. The soy sauce, sugar, garlic and black pepper combination in the marinade is not quite unlike local preps. Eomeoni comes in with sesame oil profusions of scallions, onions and ginger to push the flavor beyond bistek to SoKor.

Flour tortillas are quite versatile, in that they can carry assortments of toppings that usually work. Fresh kimchi slaw and homemade pepper paste top spicy pork in Señor Kimchi’s Korean BBQ Tacos. A special tropical salsa with mangoes pays homage to local pride.

Rice is an unnecessary starch in my book, but there is no denying the beautiful combination of the spicy pungency of kimchi on plain, boiled rice. A stir-frying to fuse the two is quite the Korean alchemist’s trick with red bell peppers, onions and carrots figuring in the aromatics in the Kimchi Fried Rice. A generous topping of Bulgogi Beef and an oozy fried egg stood as solid proteins.

A variety of local and imported beers are available, but the obvious choice was a Corona. Mexican-American, you know? DTLA. This light, easy beer is pleasantly malty with a latent tartness brought about by that lemon wedge. Perfect for the bright and easy dining atmosphere packed with chic downtown details and arresting, thematic graffiti. Rough finishes, patchy tiling, “rusted” pendant lights, reclaimed wood look and bursts of color. The City of Angels may still be a US Visa approval away, but it might as well be right smack in the new neighborhood of Axis Entertainment Center. Si, señor, at Señor Kimchi.

Axis Entertainment Center-Vibo Place, Escario Street, Cebu City

0943 450 2445

Ramen Kamekichi

by Patty Taboada

“Spicy level three?” a good friend asked, part skeptical and part admiring, as I placed my usual order of a chashumen. This was at Ramen Kamekichi about a year ago—incidentally, this was the last time I found myself at their branch in Mabolo. Our other dining companions ordered their bowls of ramen at reasonable levels of hotness (that is, level one or not spicy at all), while I, a lover of all dishes with that extra kick, apparently have the tolerance of a superhero.

If there’s one dish I could eat for the rest of my life, it’s ramen. Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you that the first place I’d suggest for a meal would be a ramen place, even if it’s right in the middle of a summer heatwave. Ramen Kamekichi was one of my favorite places for ramen, so you can’t possibly imagine the anguish I felt when I thought they had closed up for good.

Fast forward several months later, and I was brimming with excitement as I entered the new Ramen Kamekichi along Gorordo Avenue. While the original branch was comfortable and unassuming at best, the new restaurant embraces a modern and stylish look, decked with cool shades of teal and warm wooden accents—a definite upgrade. As much as I was impressed with the décor, however, I had a craving and an empty stomach to satisfy.

We start off the meal with a generous helping of Okonomiyaki, another favorite Japanese dish. Unlike the many others I’ve had, Kamekichi’s version was topped with bonito flakes, giving the dish that distinctly alive look and a unique flavor. The Seafood Chahan was a crowd-pleaser with its hearty and filling taste. There were also plates of Gyoza, Buta Ika Shougayaki and Yakitori—all of them incredibly delicious, by the way. I would’ve finished them all if I wasn’t anticipating the ramen.

Finally, the Jigoku Chashumen arrives—at spice level one only, but I had to play nice and share. While it lacked the kick I was used to, it was the same ramen I knew and loved from all the way back, complete with a big serving of noodles, some mushroom slices, chashu, spring onions and other spices. The broth was flavorful without being too overwhelming. We also try out the Tonkotsu Ramen and the Miso Ramen, and both were delicious in different ways, assuring there’s something for everyone.

The regular patrons of the original Ramen Kamekichi would be pleased to know that while a different family now runs the restaurant, they have retained the chef as an industrial partner. The result is a much better restaurant and location, while serving the same dishes—and more offerings—that has made Ramen Kamekichi a longtime Cebuano favorite. As for me, I’m definitely going back for that spicy level three chashumen soon.

38 Gorordo Avenue, Cebu City

632. 261 1018

[FB] Ramen Kamekichi

[INSTA] @ramenkamekichi

Originally published in Zee Lifestyle, March 2016

Related Topics:Dining in Cebu K-Pub BBQ Palermo Ramen kamekichi Señor Kimchi Top Restaurants in Cebu Where to Eat in Cebu

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Arts & Culture

Pasulong; Anton Quisumbing at the Yuchengco Museum

by Mia Durano | photography by Zach Aldave

There is something about walking into the Yuchengco Museum that sends a signal before you’ve even seen the artworks. Situated in RCBC Plaza, right in the middle of Makati’s financial district, it is an institution with a point of view — a forum as much as a gallery. So when the energy of an exhibition opening spills past the main hall and into the corridors, something tells you that someone has earned their way in.

Pasulong is Anton Quisumbing’s first solo exhibition in over two decades. Twenty-nine sculptures that took two years to complete, all cast in bronze, made from propellers salvaged from boats damaged by Typhoon Odette in 2021. Those who knew what that ill-fated period was like understand why the timeline matters. This is not decorative bronze; rather, it is marine-grade, built to resist corrosion and force. It is a material that does not yield to the ravages of the ocean.

There is a reason why metalwork is described in physical terms — it is cold, harsh, brash, forceful, and resistant. And when you walk into a room full of bronze sculptures, that experience becomes resonant. Propulsion, with its loops, arcs, and curves that rise, descend, and turn back into shape, embodies this. There are no right angles and no hard stops here. In this particular piece, the artist is remarkably aware of its sinuous movement and instead finds its voice within the medium.

This is the tension Anton Quisumbing works with. His practice has always tested what a single material can hold, allowing every movement to maintain the weight of its volume. Pasulong does not present a clean arc of recovery; instead, it delivers the full range of its intentions.

Sight, a warped figure with an almond eye and armor along one side, carries what the exhibition describes as a sense of lightness despite the weight we carry in our lives. The work stands with the authority of something that has found its own gravitas. The artist leans toward the idea that recovery is not resolved in one sweeping gesture.

Anton Quisumbing spent years away from sculpture, turning instead to painting as his primary medium. In Pasulong, he returns to bronze and to the physical demands of the material, which, in a way, becomes an act of pushing further toward his original vision. The outcome is an artist in full control of both subject and medium.

Anton Quisumbing ‘s practice as a sculptor is anchored in testing the strength of a single material.

The artist’s primary concern in working with bronze was its malleability.

Pasulong marks Anton Quisumbing’s return to sculpture.

Propulsion, bronze sculpture 83×44×35cm 2024

Sight, bronze sculpture 63×40×22.8cm 2024

Gilo Sarmiento, this writer Mia Durano and artist Ramon Orlina

Arts & Culture

Kundiman–A Collaboration Between Charles Lahti and Francis Dravigny at the Qube Gallery

by Oj Hofer

“Collaboration is like carbonation for fresh ideas “-Anonymous

Kundiman—drawn from the Filipino tradition of lyrical love songs marked by longing, devotion, and emotional depth—unfolded not merely as an exhibition but as a dialogue between two artists whose practices, though formally distinct, share a common goal: that creation is never singular, never complete, and never entirely one’s own. The word itself carries weight. In the Philippine cultural imagination, kundiman is not passive sentiment but a mode of endurance—a way of loving what one cannot fully possess, of honoring what exceeds one’s grasp—and to name an exhibition after it is to make a claim about the nature of making itself: that art, like the song, is an act of devotion directed toward something larger than the maker’s intention. It is a form that does not declare but lingers; not spectacle, but the quieter and more demanding thing called intimacy.

The collaboration between Charles Lahti and Francis Dravigny operates at what might be called the threshold of language—the place where gesture becomes structure and structure, over time, turns into meaning. Their working relationship is less a merger of two styles than a negotiation between two modes of listening: one drawn to the decisive mark, the other to the patient accumulation of woven form. Lahti’s mark-making is grounded, deliberate, and unambiguous in its commitment to presence; his lines carry the quality of breath, each stroke an event rather than a flourish. Observers familiar with East Asian ink traditions will recognize this sensibility immediately, for in Zen ink practice and Japanese calligraphy, the practitioner does not decide what to draw so much as prepare the conditions under which something may reveal itself—the mark that emerges from this discipline is not decorative but testimonial, evidence of a moment of full attention. Lahti’s work operates within this logic even when the cultural references are Western, and what anchors it is not style but stance: an ethical relation to the act of making that distinguishes genuine presence from the mere performance of spontaneity, a distinction far rarer in contemporary visual art than it ought to be.

“The line is not drawn but revealed—through stillness, breath, and a quality of awareness that the discipline of reduction alone makes possible.”

Dravigny’s woven interventions introduce a different, though deeply complementary, temporality. Where Lahti works in the decisive instant, Dravigny works in accumulation—the slow building-up of material over time—and his use of abacá, a fiber indigenous to the Philippine archipelago, is not incidental. Abacá carries its own history: long harvested by hand, traded across colonial networks, woven into ropes and sails, and more recently reclaimed as a medium of cultural expression, so that to bring it into an art context is to activate this history without necessarily declaring it. In Dravigny’s hands, textile transcends its usual function as background or support and becomes instead an act of preservation—a material archive that holds within its weave the gestures of another artist. This concept, which the exhibition implicitly explores, speaks to something the atelier tradition has long understood: that a work of art may pass through multiple bodies and multiple intentions and still emerge with coherence, provided each maker brings to the passage not assertion but responsiveness, the capacity to receive another’s action and carry it forward without erasing it. Dravigny’s woven interventions propose a similar ethic, made visible rather than concealed.

What Kundiman ultimately stages is not the product of collaboration but its conditions: the particular quality of attention required when one artist’s gesture enters the field of another’s practice, and the willingness to wait that such attention demands. The Japanese aesthetic tradition names this interval ma—the generative pause, the charged space in which meaning gathers before it resolves into form—and the exhibition’s restraint is precisely its argument. There is no excess, no spectacle, no rhetorical gesture toward significance, only a sustained attentiveness to process that runs counter to the dominant logic of contemporary exhibition-making, in which legibility is prized and impact must be immediate. Kundiman refuses this, trusting the viewer to do the work of attending, and in this refusal it finds its deepest kinship with Zen aesthetics: the discipline of reduction, the clarity of intention, the respect for what is essential over what is merely present.

“What Kundiman proposes is more radical than most exhibitions dare: that the self, in the act of making, becomes temporarily permeable—open to the gesture, the material logic, the devotion of another.”

The concept of interbeing—rooted in Buddhist philosophy and carrying the understanding that nothing arises independently, that every form is the result of conditions and every maker is in part made by what they make—finds in this exhibition its material proof. What was created here does not belong to one hand alone. It emerges in the space between, where gesture is received, transformed, and returned; where material listens and form responds and meaning unfolds not as conclusion but as continuation. The exhibition ends. The dialogue does not. This is the space between hands: where making becomes meeting, and where interbeing quietly, insistently gives rise to form.

Charles Lahti with his latest works—layering print with bandana textiles to create tactile, hybrid surfaces where image, pattern, and material converge.

Francis Dravigny in his Cebu studio—transforming abacá and found materials into layered, sculptural weavings.

A wall of interbeing—where weave, gesture, and form dissolve into quiet harmony and non-duality.

A flat surface transformed into a quiet weave—drawing the eye inward, where structure softens into stillness and resonates with Zen practice.

Arts & Culture

Kundiman After Dark: Traditional 19th Century Filipino Musical Genre Continues to Inspire

by Kingsley Medalla

The Kundiman is a traditional 19th-century Tagalog musical genre that served as a profound source of inspiration for many sophisticated, classically trained artists. The name is derived from the Tagalog phrase “kung hindi man,” literally translating to “if it were not so.” These musical pieces were often performed as poignant love songs characterized by smooth, flowing melodies containing emotional depth. Originating as a serenade in poetic Tagalog lyrics, it features a minor-to-major key progression expressing longing, devotion, patriotism, and a yearning for freedom.

Sine Pop, a boutique theater in a 1948 post-war heritage house located in Cubao, Quezon City, serves as a charming venue for cultural events and intimate performances with a small ensemble. Recently hosting Kundiman After Dark, a recital honoring the legacy of Nicanor Abelardo (1893–1934), a highly esteemed Filipino composer and pianist hailed as the “father of the sonata form in the Philippines” and a master of the art of the Kundiman. Carlson Chan, founder of Sine Pop, clarifies their unique model: the performances are open to the public and are, as such, complimentary, as its primary focus is to promote the performing artists per se.

The performances featured beloved Kundiman classics including Mutya ng Pasig (1926), Naku… Kenkoy (1930), and a personal favorite, Bituing Marikit (1926). These musical pieces were brought to life through the solo acts and live vocals of tenor Erwin Lumauag, Japanese violinist Shiho Takashima (who has since made the Philippines her permanent residence), and the renowned composer, pedagogue, and pianist Augusto Espino.

“Nasaan Ka Irog,” written in 1923, drew inspiration from a romantic tale shared by Nicanor Abelardo’s friend, who went overseas leaving behind his beloved in the Philippines. Years after, this man eventually became a doctor and, upon his return, discovered that the love of his life had been married to someone else. He also learned that the letters he had sent were never delivered to her, as they were kept by the doctor’s family, secretly away from her. A classic case of unrequited love. Kundiman serves as the heart and soul and the pinnacle of Filipino musical artistry.