Singular is A New Culinary Bridge Between Spain and Manila
A new restaurant in BGC reintroduces Spanish cuisine through unexpected flavors that feel both rooted here and shaped by a distant coast
A familiar flavor, a partial story
A particular familiarity settles over the Filipino palate when Spanish food is mentioned. The flavors feel close, yet the understanding of them often remains shallow, shaped by the same handful of dishes repeated in restaurants and home kitchens alike.
The story of Spanish cuisine here has long been told through greatest hits, leaving little room for the complexity of a country defined by coastal villages, inland farms, and regional traditions that rarely reach our shores.
In Manila, that narrative is starting to shift. Singular, the newest fine dining restaurant in BGC from the team behind the Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded Bolero, enters the scene with a proposition that feels both familiar and radical. Rather than recreating Spain as a distant ideal, it presents the lesser-known side of its culinary identity through a Philippine lens.
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Co-owner Felipe Diaz de Miranda frames the intention simply. The goal is to serve Spanish food from the Philippines while sourcing almost everything locally. Only a handful of ingredients, like pork and pigeon, make the journey from Spain.
A menu that rewrites assumptions
VMAN Southeast Asia was invited to experience selections from the inaugural tasting menu, which challenged the easy assumptions about Spanish food without abandoning its foundations.
Seafood emerged as a defining thread. It recalled the breadth of the Spanish coastline and the food shaped by salt, tide, and boats coming in at dawn.
Lamb was, as always, present in the course, because Spanish cuisine would feel incomplete without it. The Cordero Asado con Lechuga Alindaña turned the meat into a grilled meatball, juicy and unapologetically gamey, balanced by fermented grapes, grilled lettuce, and prawns cooked in Manzanilla. It felt like a meal that belonged to a long afternoon, or to a family table that filled slowly with stories.
The idea behind the tasting menu feels clear after all twelve courses. Each dish carries a story from Spain that is rarely told, allowing meaning to feel accessible rather than academic. The restaurant’s purpose is to surprise the palate while traveling across regions and memories. It evokes Sundays by the sea, family lunches, coastal air, and kitchens where grandmothers taught without writing anything down.
Why it lives up to its name
The name Singular reflects that. One of a kind. A restaurant that brings top-tier Spanish cuisine from the Philippines rather than to it. A revival of an old connection through flavor instead of nostalgia. A cinematic kitchen, a menu that moves like a narrative, and a vision that treats food as a living exchange of heritage.
Singular offers Spain as seen through the eyes of the chefs, interpreted through local ingredients, and experienced through dishes that feel both new and rooted. It asks diners to rethink what they know, and to taste history as something still alive on the plate.
Singular is a new fine dining restaurant in BGC that showcases lesser known Spanish dishes interpreted through Filipino ingredients. It is created by the same team behind the Michelin Bib Gourmand awarded Bolero.
The restaurant focuses on serving Spanish food from the Philippines, sourcing about 90 percent of its ingredients locally. It highlights regional Spanish flavors that go beyond the usual paella and croquetas.
The kitchen is led by Chef Fernando Alcalá, known for his work at Michelin recognized Kava in Marbella and Bolero, together with Chef Edu Fuentes who heads the culinary team in execution.
The menu features seafood centered plates, adobo style mackerel, lamb prepared as a grilled meatball, arroz caldoso with grouper, and desserts inspired by the Canary Islands and sherry traditions. Each course reflects a lesser known story from Spain.
The space combines rustic warmth with an industrial feel and features an open kitchen designed to look cinematic. Guests can watch the chefs at work while enjoying cocktails and a spacious dining layout.
Photography Jorem Catilo
