What to eat in the Philippines: island kitchens, ordering and prices

Three island groups, one rice-based table

The national table runs from "the globally renowned Cebu lechon and the comforting tastes of adobo and sinigang", in the tourism secretary's words, to Mindanao's curacha and pastil and a glass of halo-halo.

Adobo has the best claim to be the national dish. The Bureau of Philippine Standards, which began writing a national standard for it on 11 May 2021, quotes one of its chefs: "Adobo is not a recipe. It is a cooking technique." Chicken, pork or squid is braised or stewed with vinegar and garlic, and from there each kitchen adds its own laurel, pepper, soy sauce, coconut milk or annatto. Kitchens vary, and the differences are the point.

Sinigang is the other national comfort: a sour soup, often soured with tamarind, with prawns, fish or pork and vegetables, eaten with rice. Via Mare, the Manila restaurant group, calls it "the soul of Filipino comfort food".

A first trip on our first-trip route passes through the Visayas, and a longer route adds Luzon; Mindanao is a separate question, covered below.

• Luzon: vinegar and garlic in the Ilocos, coconut and chilli in Bicol, and the Kapampangan table of Pampanga.
• Visayas: lechon in Cebu, chicken inasal in Bacolod and Iloilo, batchoy noodle soup in Iloilo, and seafood grilled, stewed or dressed raw.
• Mindanao: Davao's grilled tuna and durian, Zamboanga's curacha and the Maguindanao pastil.

Luzon: Kapampangan kitchens, Bicol coconut and Ilocano vinegar

The Department of Tourism calls Pampanga "the culinary capital of the Philippines", and its must-tries are a summary of the Luzon table: sisig, bringhe, halo-halo, pancit luglog and dinuguan, the pig-blood stew. On our routes, Manila is the easiest place to eat them, and sinigang and adobo with them.

Bicol, at the south-eastern end of Luzon, likes it "spicy" and "creamy", sometimes in the same pot. Bicol express is the famous one: pork stewed with chilli, coconut milk, shrimp paste, onion and garlic. Pinangat is fish stewed in a sour broth, and caramelised pili nuts are the sweet to carry home.

The Ilocos, in the north-west, cooks with garlic and its own vinegar. The Ilocano table includes pinakbet, mixed vegetables with a little pork and bagoong (fermented shrimp or fish paste), often topped with bagnet, pork with extra-crispy skin and tender meat. Ilocos longganisa is a garlicky sausage sharpened with vinegar, and the region's empanada wraps longganisa, vegetables and egg in a crisp orange crust. Basi is the local sugarcane wine.

In the capital, Via Mare, a Filipino restaurant group since 1975, serves the Luzon classics at branches across Metro Manila, including one in the Tambayan Food Hall on the ground floor of NAIA Terminal 3. Our Manila guide names its own places for kare-kare, sinigang and halo-halo, and the Banaue guide covers etag and heirloom rice in the Cordillera.

• Order in Manila: chicken and pork adobo, sinigang with rice, Bicol express, kare-kare.
• For the north: bagnet with pinakbet, longganisa and empanada.
• In Pampanga: sisig, bringhe and the Kapampangan halo-halo.

The Visayas: lechon, inasal and the seafood grill

Cebu's provincial government calls its lechon a culinary icon, "roasted to perfection over charcoal, stuffed with a blend of herbs and spices" and turned by hand until the skin is golden. The province calls it "the centerpiece of every fiesta, wedding, and gathering" in Cebu, and names two towns where you can eat it "straight from the pit": Talisay, immediately south of Cebu City, which the province calls the lechon capital of Cebu, and Carcar, further south, whose lechon is served with its own sweet-savoury juices poured over the meat. One word to know: in Talisay's own list the pig appears as inasal, the Cebuano word for it, which is not the grilled chicken of the next paragraph.

Around the lechon sits the rest of the Cebuano table. Puso is rice in coconut leaves, sold at roadside stalls; humba, braised pork, is described by the province as Cebu's answer to adobo; and on Mactan the sutukil places grill, stew and dress raw the fish you choose. For lechon by the kilo in the city, the seaside sutukil places and the market breakfasts, see our Cebu guide; for Bohol's own dishes on the Panglao days, the Bohol guide.

Further west, on Negros and Panay, is the other great Visayan grill. Bacolod's chicken inasal is chicken marinated in calamansi, annatto, coconut vinegar and pepper, grilled over coals and eaten "the Bacolod way": with a tangy dipping sauce, a mound of rice and a drizzle of golden chicken oil. Iloilo City adds batchoy, a clear noodle soup with mixed meats and offal. The chain that took inasal nationwide, Mang Inasal, opened its first store in Iloilo City in 2003 and pairs the chicken with unlimited rice; it now has more than 570 branches, Cebu and Tagbilaran among them.

On the coast, seafood is the meal. Sutukil is short for sugba, grilled, tuwa, stewed, and kilaw, raw, the three ways the Cebu coast cooks a fresh fish; kinilaw, raw fish dressed with vinegar, is on menus from Siargao to Palawan, and our island guides name the places to eat it.

• Cebu City day: lechon at lunch, with puso; humba if the lechon has sold out.
• The lechon towns: Talisay on the city's southern edge, Carcar further south.
• Anywhere in the Visayas: chicken inasal with rice and calamansi, and batchoy if you reach Iloilo.

Mindanao: Siargao on our routes

On our routes, Mindanao food means Siargao, whose guide covers the grilled fish and kinilaw of General Luna; Zamboanga's curacha, Maguindanao's pastil and Davao's grilled tuna jaw and durian are on no route in this edition.

Checked on 27 October 2026, the UK Foreign Office (FCDO) advises against all travel to western and central Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago, and against all but essential travel to the rest of Mindanao except Camiguin, Dinagat and Siargao; the German Foreign Office advises against non-essential travel to the rest of Mindanao and the Mindanao Sea except Davao City, Camiguin, Dinagat and Siargao, and Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (19 December 2024) puts Siargao at its level 1, "exercise sufficient caution".

Siargao is outside the UK and German warnings but mainland Mindanao is not, so fly straight into IAO, do not use the sea route through Surigao City, and read your own government's advice and your insurer's terms.

• On our routes: Siargao, flying straight into IAO, for grilled fish and kinilaw.
• Not on our routes: Davao, where the FCDO advises against all but essential travel; Zamboanga and Maguindanao, where it advises against all travel.

How to order: carinderia, grill chain and sit-down table

At a carinderia. For an everyday lunch, the place is the carinderia, a small local eatery with the day's dishes cooked in pots or trays along the counter. Its old name, turo-turo, means "point-point", which is the whole method: you point at one or two dishes, they go on or beside a plate of rice, and you pay for what you chose.

At a grill chain. A quick hot meal is a grilled-chicken or pork-barbecue plate at a chain, ordered at the counter. Mang Inasal's menu, checked on 27 October 2026, sells a large chicken leg quarter with one cup of rice for PHP 139, or PHP 179 with unlimited rice.

At a sit-down Filipino restaurant. Menus are written for sharing: Via Mare marks its dishes "good for 2" or "good for 2-3", so for two, a soup, one main and rice make a meal, passed round the table. Its prices include 12% VAT but not the 10% service charge, which is added to the bill.

On the street. Street vendors sell snacks such as turon, below, from stalls and carts. Carry small peso notes for these and for carinderias, and a card for malls and restaurants.

• Carinderia: point at the pots, add rice, pay at the counter.
• Grill chain: order at the counter; unlimited rice costs a little more.
• Restaurant: share the dishes, marked for two or three.

Merienda, halo-halo and the rest of the day

Breakfast can be a bowl of rice porridge. Via Mare's arroz caldo, ginger-and-garlic rice porridge with chicken, is PHP 320 on its 2026 menu, and its NAIA Terminal 3 branch opens at 07:00, which makes it an easy first meal off an overnight flight.

Merienda is the mid-afternoon snack, and it has a cuisine of its own. At home it is made from rice, root crops, fruit and coconut; a big favourite is turon, deep-fried banana rolls, which street vendors sell too. The restaurant version is kakanin, rice cakes — Via Mare's menu notes that the word comes from kanin, cooked rice. Its bibingka galapong, a soft rice cake baked on banana leaves with Laguna cheese and salted duck egg, is PHP 245, and puto bumbong, purple glutinous rice steamed in bamboo with butter, coconut and palm sugar, PHP 140. Savoury merienda counts too: pancit luglog, rice noodles in a shrimp sauce with crushed pork crackling, PHP 440.

Halo-halo is crushed ice with sweet beans, fruits and leche flan, with milk over the top. Versions range from Mang Inasal's Extra Creamy halo-halo at PHP 75 for 12 oz and PHP 95 for 16 oz to Via Mare's PHP 225 glass of sweetened fruits, yams, pulses and egg custard, with ice cream for PHP 80 more.

Drinks. In Cebu, the hot drink to try is chocolate: tablea hot chocolate, or sikwate, the chocolate drink served with rice cakes such as budbod kabog. Cold drinks are buko, chilled young coconut, and sago't gulaman, sago pearls and jelly in raw-sugar syrup over crushed ice.

• Mid-afternoon: merienda of bibingka, puto bumbong or turon.
• Sweet: halo-halo, from a grill-chain cup to a restaurant glass.
• Hot drink: tablea or sikwate chocolate in Cebu.

What a meal costs

Prices below are the restaurants' own menus, checked on 27 October 2026.

A carinderia plate of rice and one or two dishes is the everyday alternative to these, paid for at the counter.

For a day, not a dish, use the three levels of our trip-cost guide, which priced every meal of a February 2027 Cebu–Bohol week with prices checked on 21 October 2026: about PHP 700 a person a day at grill chains and local eateries, about PHP 1,250 with sit-down meals and shared dishes, and about PHP 3,500 at resort restaurants with drinks. That guide also prices the rooms, boats and tours.

• Quick local lunch: a carinderia plate of rice and one or two dishes.
• Cebu grill dinner: pork barbecue and rice at Gerry's.
• Sit-down meal for two: sinigang, adobo and two cups of rice (PHP 55 each) at Via Mare, about PHP 1,200 with service.

Meal by meal on the first-trip route

This plan follows our first-trip route: two nights in Cebu City, three on Panglao and one on Mactan, flying in and out of Mactan-Cebu (CEB). A Manila start is added at the end for the longer routes.

• Cebu City, day 1: after the airport, chicken inasal at Mang Inasal on Colon Street, with the branches and hours in the food box.
• Cebu City, day 2: lechon with puso after the old-centre walk, at Rico's Lechon, which our Cebu guide covers; with a spare half-day, ride south to Talisay or Carcar for lechon from the pit.
• Panglao, days 3–5: kabaw (water buffalo) dishes in Loboc on the inland day, as the Bohol guide sets out; passing through Tagbilaran, Mang Inasal in Island City Mall (09:00–21:00) for a cheap inasal lunch.
• Mactan, day 6: dinner at the seaside sutukil places on Mactan that the province names, choosing the fish and how each piece is cooked.
• Manila start (14- and 21-day routes): arroz caldo or bibingka at Via Mare in NAIA Terminal 3, then adobo and sinigang for two at a Via Mare branch such as Landmark Makati in Ayala Center; merienda in the afternoon.

Halal, vegetarian and allergies

Pork is in many signature dishes: lechon, the centrepiece of Cebu's fiestas, and bagnet, dinuguan and Bicol express. Halal food is available, according to the Department of Tourism, whose halal work centres on Metro Manila, where it is working with restaurant groups to provide more Muslim-friendly and halal-certified food.

Vegetarian and vegan. Explain by ingredient: no meat, fish, shrimp paste (bagoong), fish sauce or animal stock. A vegetable dish such as pinakbet is seasoned with bagoong and carries a dash of pork, and Bicol express is built on shrimp paste. Rice, kakanin, fruit and buko are the easy wins; halo-halo contains milk and leche flan contains egg.

Allergies. Peanuts are in kare-kare, whose sauce is peanut and annatto, and in Cebu's balbacua; bagoong comes with kare-kare and goes into pinakbet and Bicol express; and shellfish is in sinigang na hipon, pancit luglog's shrimp sauce and the seafood grill. Via Mare marks egg, milk, fish, soy, wheat and peanut on its menu. Whether you avoid pork, eat vegetarian or have an allergy, ask what a dish contains before you point or order, especially when dishes are shared.

• Halal: clearest in Metro Manila, where the tourism department's halal work is centred.
• Vegetarian: no meat, fish, shrimp paste, fish sauce or stock.
• Allergens to name: peanut, shrimp and fish, milk and egg.