Rekdi was born from a hunger for something simple: a grill restaurant that focused on the flavor of fire itself. Most grill places in Manila anchor on a region or a cuisine: Ilonggo inasal, kebabs, Japanese yakitori. They all have their strengths, but there wasn’t a place that celebrated pure char, smoke, and umami without getting tangled in tradition.
Rekdi was designed as a modern karinderya, not to imitate one, but to simulate its energy. A space that feels casual, messy, communal, yet precise in flavor. Like a karinderya, it serves a mix of vegetable dishes, soups, and grilled proteins, along with a few base noodles or rice, but everything is reimagined for the modern table: personal-sized, not family-style.
Vegetables aren’t side dishes, they’re part of the center story. Every dish is small, focused, and designed for mixing and matching. The goal isn’t a showy tasting menu. It’s a rhythm, a choose-your-own flow of flavor built around smoke, salt, fat, and acid.
Our menu centers on the starches first. Bread, rice, noodles. And from there the diner pairs it with the dishes.
Simulating a Filipino household, and a classic karinderya, we designed our menu where the diner can start with their starch of choice and have the dishes, from vegetables to meats to seafood, complete the meal.
Or just like a Japanese izakaya or a French bistro or Spanish tapas bar, everything on the menu can also perfectly go with drinks.
The Rekdi bar/food philosophy
Rekdi is about flavor before form. It’s the chaos of a karinderya refined through craft, instinct, then discipline.
We use technique not to impress but to make instinct sharper. We cook with fire, fat, and acid. We’re irreverent but intentional.
Our ingredients are not entirely just Filipino. We call it home pantry cooking. Anything that a normal Filipino pantry may have. Sriracha, miso, parmesan, capers, smoked paprika, anchovies, X.O sauce.
No lemon or lime. No olive oil. Only beef tallow, pork lard, chicken oil, butter and vegetable oil.
As for our cocktails, we highlight Filipino flavors too but using a mix of different influences.
Wasabi with plum. Sesame and tapuy. Siling labuyo and oolong tea. And that’s not mentioning our Kanto drinks inspired by what our drinkers enjoy in the streets of Manila.
We don’t chase perfection. We don’t want subtle. We chase flavor. Just like a good movie, there’s grit, a bit of chaos and a strong sense of character.
The Rekdi experience
Rekdi isn’t the kind of restaurant where you just sit, eat, and leave. It’s the kind of place where people talk, about food, about life, about whatever’s happening this week. I built Rekdi for the tsismosos and tsismosas: the ones who love a good story, a bit of laughter, a little chika over grilled meat and noodles.
The food is small-plate and personal, but the energy is shared. Here, it’s normal to lean over, smile at the next table, or get curious about what they ordered. That’s the point. Rekdi is a place to eat, but also to connect, where everyone feels part of the same table, the same moment, the same story.
Menu philosophy
Rekdi’s menu is a living document, evolving through tasting, testing, and arguing in the kitchen. Our food is built around the grill, but the goal isn’t to imitate or perform ‘Filipino-ness.’ It’s to honor the instinct of the Filipino palate. Salty, smoky, sour, umami, sweet with discipline and restraint.
No ingredient is sacred. We use anything. And we will use anything. We bring to our menu humble ingredients and give them the center stage. We use local corn, daikon, cabbage. We use the less popular blue marlin or the mackerel or the pork jowl and elevate it as the star of the dish.
Rekdi looks the way it tastes: raw, warm, and electric. The walls are imperfect, the lights are cinematic, the space feels like it’s breathing. It’s a mix of karinderya grit and art-film glow: faded walls, acid mirrors, dark greens and reds, punctuated by light and reflection. Each floor has its own tempo, the bar hums, the dining room sways, the kitchen beats steady. The design isn’t polished; it’s felt, alive, layered, and Filipino in texture, not just in name.
Our menu evolves with our cooks. Every dish is a collaboration, not a hierarchy. We rewrite recipes the way we rewrite scripts — until the flavor feels like a story that ends exactly right.
The guest promise
- Guests should feel seen, not managed.
- We guide, never sell.
- We serve the way we cook — with soul, honesty, and humor.
- Every table deserves food that feels alive
- “They saw me, not sold to me.”
Core values — The Rekdi seven
- Hungry – We stay curious. We taste, test, and explore.
- Honest – We say what we mean. We fix what’s wrong.
- Curious – Every mistake teaches something.
- Grounded – No ego. No divas. We’re cooks, not stars.
- Brave – We try ideas that might fail — that’s how we grow.
- Generous – With flavor, knowledge, and respect.
- Irreverent – We laugh, we tease, we keep it real.
Rekdi reimagines what a Filipino restaurant can be:
- Less fried, less oily.
- Anchored in grill and umami, not nostalgia.
- Confident enough to use any ingredient — miso, soy sauce, Parmesan, tomatoes — if it makes the food hit harder.
Rekdi is located at 5713 Pagulayan, Poblacion, Makati City.
