Unique, upscale food parks

CHELSEA Market & Café at Serendra

To mangle an old real-estate adage, it’s all about food, food, food. In today’s competitive rental property environment, the quality of the food court is critical to enticing prospective tenants. Originality and ingenuity in food court concepts makes employees happy, and therefore critical to lessees or buyers.

One company that specializes in food park design and management is Raintree Partners Inc. Over the past decade, they have run food courts for a number of commercial properties, many with unique twists to keep them all different.

COOL interiors of Rocket Room at Bonifacio High Street Central

GT Tower’s Food & Art Gallery has art works for sale, displayed between the food carts. LKG Tower’s Food Odyssey is designed with a modern futuristic flair. Raintree also handles the food arcades of PBCom Building and PhilAm Tower.

Annabelle Wisniewski, head of Raintree, told me about their latest project in the Zuellig building. They manage Laza Food Park on the second floor and the Sky Garden on the top floor. Additionally, Terraz is a casual and approachable dining space featuring modern comfort cuisine within Makati’s renowned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-accredited high-rise building.

Top-quality dishes

MR. JONES Restaurant at Greenbelt 5

At Terraz, chef Arnold Gozon prepares top-quality dishes for lunch and cocktails with tapas and sangrias at hand as an ideal conclusion to one’s busy cosmopolitan schedule. Indeed, the outlet is a perfect place to hold social events, corporate meetings, family snacks and even romantic dinners.

Aside from the food courts, Raintree Restaurants (www.raintreerestaurants.com) provides a pleasurable social and gustatory experience at all the restaurants they operate. They give top-quality food items and excellent service for their customers’ dining pleasure.

MODERN Japanese interior at Saboten Restaurant in Serendra

For example, Chelsea Market & Café in Serendra and Podium both serve the best gourmet comfort food from only the freshest ingredients. With its bright and inviting interiors, guests are assured of the casual, light and homey-feel environment where they can sit back, relax and enjoy all-day high-quality food amid the bustling city life.

Inspired by the 1960s, Mr. Jones is an up-market and contemporary diner conveniently located at the ground floor of Greenbelt 5. It is a new destination restaurant offering a full array of authentic American cuisine. Mr. Jones transports you back to the time of jukeboxes, roller-skates and really good milkshakes.

Another Raintree outlet is the Museum Café at Ayala Museum. The café glows through the double-height glass windows, offering passersby a hint of the excitement inside. It offers a modern twist to Asian cuisine featuring variations of dim sum and other Asian inspirations.

MODERN Japanese interior at Saboten Restaurant in Serendra

Stella is Raintree’s wood-fired bistro, fusing pleasant spirits and stylish interiors with fine music and a rustic menu. The menu harks back to the West Coast, the Mediterranean and South America. The bistro, prominently located in Bonifacio High Street Central, makes use of natural wood in its dishes, imparting the most flavorful aromas unlike any other cooking technique.

I was also surprised to learn that the Rocket Room is among Raintree’s offerings. This bar lounge-café is right next to Stella, and offers small bites, mixed liquor and eclectic music. With its vivid and outré interiors elaborately designed by Noel Bernardo, Rocket Room lends a retro vibe to every afternoon coffee break or late night out.

WEST Coast-style interiors of Stella Bistro

The latest Raintree restaurant is Saboten at Serendra. Modern Japanese interiors complement the tonkatsu dishes at this chain restaurant that originated in Shinjuku, Japan. There are over 500 Sabotens all over Asia and the Serendra branch is poised to be the best one yet.

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