Michelin Manila and Cebu 2027: FLOW Earns the Only New Star

The Michelin Guide Manila and Environs and Cebu has completed its second year in the Philippines without demoting anyone. The 2027 selection, presented at the Manila Marriott Hotel at Newport World Resorts, names 127 establishments: one restaurant at two stars, nine at one star, 31 Bib Gourmand addresses and 86 in the Selected category. The single change at the top is an addition. FLOW, in Makati, received one star, and every restaurant that held a star in the inaugural edition held onto it.

The arithmetic tells the story of a guide settling in. The first selection listed 108 establishments; the second adds 19 net names, with 18 new Selected restaurants and eight new Bib Gourmands, two of them promoted from within the guide. Filipino cooking accounted for close to 60 per cent of the newly selected addresses, a figure the guide itself highlighted, and the inspectors ranged across Manila, Cebu, Pampanga and Cavite.

The Philippines continues to impress with the way its culinary scene is evolving while remaining deeply connected to its roots.Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the Michelin Guide

Helm stays alone at two stars

Helm, led by chef Josh Boutwood, retained two stars and remains the only restaurant in the country at that level. The guide credits the kitchen with seasonal menus built on precision and bold flavour. Helm's own account of itself is more theatrical: an intimate room of 24 seats on the third floor of Tower 2 at The Shops at Ayala Triangle Gardens in Makati, finished in black, copper and grey, where a multi-course tasting menu is served as a form of performance, with the kitchen in direct conversation with the guest.

That combination, a small counter, a changing menu and a chef cooking his own biography, is what the inspectors have now endorsed twice. In a selection where nothing at the top was taken away, Helm's retention is the anchor: the Philippines still has exactly one two-star table, and it is a 24-seat room in Makati.

FLOW: a star inside the first year

FLOW opened in December 2025, so its first star arrives less than a year into service. The restaurant sits inside the Green Sun Hotel at 2285 Chino Roces Avenue in Makati and serves dinner Tuesday to Sunday. The guide, in awarding the star, pointed to carefully built dishes, clear technique and a culinary vision grounded in local ingredients, and named chef Kevin Jonathan Uy as the kitchen's leader.

The cooking joins two countries that rarely share a menu. FLOW describes its offer as a Peruvian Filipino tasting menu, drawn from the fact that Peru and the Philippines are two of the world's 17 megadiverse ecosystems, and organised around biomes and landscapes rather than courses alone. The vocabulary on its own listing runs from leche de tigre and tiradito to anticuchos, picarones and chupe de camarones, Peruvian forms rebuilt with Philippine produce.

The background explains the idea. Uy spent five years in Peru training under Virgilio Martinez and Pia Leon at Central in Lima, after time at the Basque Culinary Center in San Sebastian, and his co-executive chef Gabriel Ong cooked at Alain Ducasse at Morpheus in Macau and at Amber in Hong Kong before returning to Manila. A star for a restaurant built on research trips and ecosystems could have read as concept over cooking. The inspectors, on the evidence of the award, found the cooking first.

The starred list, complete

The eight restaurants retaining one star are Asador Alfonso in Cavite, Celera, Hapag, Inato and Kasa Palma in Makati, Gallery by Chele in Taguig, Linamnam in Paranaque and Toyo Eatery in Makati. With Helm and FLOW, seven of the ten starred restaurants sit in Makati, the capital's financial district, which gives the Philippine guide a centre of gravity few national selections match.

Consistency of this kind cuts two ways. A second edition that changes almost nothing at the top can look cautious. It can also mean the first edition was well judged, and that the kitchens concerned cooked through their year of fame without slipping. The growth in this edition is at the base of the pyramid, in Bib Gourmand and Selected addresses, which is where a young guide builds the bench it will promote from later.

Four special awards, three of them new names

The special awards spread the attention beyond the starred rooms. The Opening of the Year Award, given in the Philippines for the first time, went to chef Frances Tariga of Tadhana in Makati, recognised for a personal reworking of Filipino cuisine. The Young Chef Award went to Francis Lacson of Digamo in Marikina, a former seafarer whose cooking the guide describes as a modern, personal expression of Filipino food with a strong sense of place.

The Service Award went to Clyde Joshua Zafra, the restaurant manager of Tito Boy in Pampanga, and the Exceptional Cocktails Award to Ron Job Sanchez of Automat in Makati, whose list the guide credits with fermentation, infusion, clarification, house-made herbal oils and fat-washing in the service of drinks designed to sit beside food. None of the four award winners holds a star, which is its own message about where the guide is looking.

Second editions are where guides stop being events and start being institutions. The 2027 Philippine selection kept its summit intact, promoted one researched, ingredient-led newcomer, and spent most of its new ink on the tiers below the stars. That is a portrait of a dining culture being mapped in depth rather than decorated at the top, and it gives next year's inspectors something specific to prove wrong.