The Finest Restaurants in Palawan

Palawan's dining identity is shaped by the archipelago's luxury-resort economy — the Amanpulo (on Pamalican Island), the El Nido Resorts (on Lagen, Miniloc, Pangulasian, and Apulit islands), and the Two Seasons and Astoria properties have, over the past thirty years, constructed a fine-dining layer in one of the most remote corners of the Philippines. The result is a dining map that is almost entirely resort-based — the town of El Nido itself has a small number of serious independent restaurants, and Puerto Princesa has a modest middle-tier programme, but the fine-dining register is concentrated at the private-island resorts.

The geography is the main operational constraint. Palawan stretches 450 kilometres north-to-south and the resort dining rooms are distributed across private islands that are accessible only by seaplane or speedboat. Amanpulo's Pamalican Island is reached via a 60-minute charter flight from Manila; the El Nido resort islands are reached by 30- to 45-minute speedboat from El Nido town, which is itself a five-hour drive or a one-hour flight from Puerto Princesa. Dress at the resort restaurants is resort-smart (collared shirts at dinner, no tie required); the town restaurants in El Nido are beach-casual.

The cuisine at the Palawan fine-dining resorts is the international-hotel register — the Amanpulo kitchens run a Mediterranean-and-Filipino programme that the Aman group operates at its Asian resorts, the El Nido resort kitchens run a pan-Asian-and-Filipino programme built around the seafood that the surrounding Sulu Sea supplies, and the independent restaurants in El Nido town present a chef-driven international-and-Filipino cuisine that reflects the town's expatriate-community character. The Filipino regional cuisine — the inasal, the kinilaw (the local ceviche), the kare-kare, the adobo — is the regional-identity thread across all registers.

Practicalities: reservations at the Aman and El Nido Resorts are booked as part of the resort stay and are typically included in the room rate or available as pre-paid dining plans. The independent restaurants in El Nido town require advance booking during the November-May dry season when the town fills with international visitors. Tipping is 10 per cent at the resort restaurants and is increasingly practised in El Nido town; in Puerto Princesa it is less common. Alcohol is freely available; the Filipino rum programme (Don Papa, Tanduay 1854) at the resort bars is a regional specialty worth engaging with. The dry season from November to May is the cultural peak; the wet season from June to October sees reduced service at some resort properties.

For further reading, our Proposal occasion guide, First Date guide, and Birthday guide place Palawan's tables alongside their peers across Southeast Asian luxury resorts. The Methodology page explains how we score.