The Peninsula Manila

Some hotels serve their city; The Peninsula Manila is used by it. The Lobby, with its palms, its twin staircases and the Sunburst above, is a meeting place for Makati as much as a route through the building, and a stay here improves considerably once that room is treated as somewhere to sit rather than somewhere to pass.

The rest follows from the position, at the corner of Ayala and Makati Avenues at the centre of the business district. Upstairs the register changes to something quieter, with large picture windows carrying the city into rooms that have no intention of joining it. Downstairs there are three ways to eat: formally, at length and in French; convivially, from a buffet; or at a lobby table, from a tall glass of halo-halo. In-room dining continues around the clock, international and Filipino both.

Under the Sunburst

The Lobby is the hotel’s civic contribution: a room of palms and twin staircases with the Sunburst sculpture above it, and enough seating for a city that prefers to meet in person. Morning coffee, afternoon tea and the first drink of the evening all happen within a few metres of one another, and the traffic of Makati’s working day passes through without ever quite disturbing any of it.

Picture windows over Makati

Upstairs the mood changes to something quieter and more residential. Large picture windows carry Makati into the rooms without letting it in, the palette is restrained, and the proportions are generous enough that a working visit stops feeling like one. The larger categories separate their living space, and the Executive Suite has seating for a conversation that runs past its natural end. It is the counterweight the hotel needs, given how sociable the ground floor is.

From Old Manila to halo-halo

Old Manila is the room to dress for, French in the kitchen and Art Deco in the lines, with the pace of a restaurant that expects the evening to be given to it. Escolta answers with an international buffet and the sound of a full house. The Lobby offers the third possibility and the most local: halo-halo, the Filipino dessert of sweet layers, shaved ice and milk, eaten in the middle of the hotel’s daily traffic.