Where to Eat in Quezon City: 11 Must-Try Locations

So your trip is all planned and paid for. The final question is, where to eat in Quezon City? QC is a sprawling hub for many things, but its food scene may be one of the most underrated in the NCR. And it’s full of options, street food, carinderias, international cuisine, fast food, sit down, stand up, use your hands, it’s all here. But what’s actually worth checking out? That part gets much trickier in a city this size. You have just as much chance of finding the worst meal of your life as finding something acceptable, let alone good.

That’s where I come in. In this post we will be focusing on some of the best Filipino restaurants you will find in Quezon City. After all, you can’t come to the Philippines and not try some of the delicious Filipino food. If you came here looking for the best Thai, Japanese, Turkish, or whatever in Quezon City, I can save you some time and assure you, you’re in the wrong place.

But if your food cravings are centered around Filipino cuisine, I got you covered. These locations will be scattered all over QC so plan accordingly. So without further ado, let’s jump into it.

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Where to Eat in Quezon City: Little Quiapo

We’re kicking this off with one of the oldest restaurants in the Philippines, Little Quiapo. This spot has a cult-like following and they’ve been banging out classic Filipino comfort food since 1949. They are particularly well known for their award winning, pancit palabok, kare-kare, and halo-halo. But don’t stop there, they have an extensive menu of Filipino classic dishes. From sisig to rellenong bangus you’re guaranteed to find something that will have you salivating. The atmosphere is comfortable, but not pretentious as so many places seem to be these days. You do you, but if I am wondering where to eat in Quezon City, I tend to start with the place locals swear by.

Provenciano

If you’re asking around for the best restaurants in Quezon City, Provenciano always comes up. Whether it deserves that kind of hype depends on how you feel about restaurants that lean hard into the “heritage” vibe.

The menu is loaded with regional Filipino food from across the country, and they definitely know how to sell the experience. Big portions. Family-style plating. With classics like bulalong Tagaytay and Bicol Express. I’ll let you guess what region these dishes are from. Provenciano even has dedicated sinigang and adobo sections on the menu for regional variations.

You can sit back and enjoy your meal pretending you’re at your rich tita’s house. Or feel extra fancy at the custom sawsawan bar before you bite into your pork bbq like a savage. It’s not cheap by Filipino standards, but it’s always packed. Which probably tells you more about how people eat in QC than any blog ever could.

Pepeton’s Grill and Catering

Pepeton’s is laid back enough to be your evening pulutan spot and nice enough to act as a sit down Filipino family restaurant. It’s built itself a loyal following of QC residents over the years as their bbq go-to. On the menu you’ll find classic pinoy dishes made with beef, chicken pork and seafood. But the main attraction at Pepeton’s is their kapalmuks. This is half of a pig’s head that has been deep fried. It arrives at your table intact with teeth and eyes staring back at you. The meat of kapalmuks will vary from tender and fatty to crispy and chewy

It might sound a little odd, but I promise you won’t regret trying it. By the time you’re done, the weird part isn’t what you ate, it’s how fast it disappeared. You’ll be poking at bone fragments with greasy fingers wondering how you turned into that guy. Then you’ll order another round of beer and pretend you still have self-control. And yeah, It’s one of my go-to picks when people ask where to eat in Quezon City.

Habanero Kitchen Bar

Most Filipino restaurants play it safe. Habanero Kitchen Bar laughs at that. They cook with real habanero chilies and serve it inside Cubao X which is easily the most chaotic food zone in Quezon City.

Their tortang talong isn’t the version your lola made. It comes loaded with Angus beef, crispy dilis, and bonito flakes. The habanero three-cheese pizza and oyster sisig are two of the most popular menu items. And if you’re stupid enough to think dessert means relief, their ice cream will light your eye lashes on fire.

Habanero doesn’t care what you expect from Filipino food. They care that you taste it, and sweat a little while you’re at it.

Cubao has plenty of options, but this is where Filipino restaurants stop pretending and start swinging.

Livestock Restaurant Bar

This isn’t your uncle’s sidewalk pulutan joint. Crispy pata is everywhere in Quezon City. But only one place tears it apart with a popsicle stick. Livestock Restaurant Bar built its name on that one move, and the pork lives up to it.

The meat pulls clean off the bone and the skin has serious crunch. You’re eating it with a cold drink in a modern gastrobar, not on a busted monoblock table under an overpass. Welcome to the new version of pulutan.

If you’re after something different, the lengua salpicao and monggo short ribs are both worth trying. This place doesn’t just serve Filipino food, they lean into it without trying to gentrify the soul out of it.

Of all the Filipino restaurants in QC, Livestock shows how much you can do with one cut of pork done right.

Where to Stay in Quezon City

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Art Circle Cafe

Tucked inside the UP Diliman campus, Art Circle Cafe feels like it should be all show and no flavor. It’s part gallery, part restaurant, and popular with students and faculty. But the surprise? The food’s actually good.

The menu is predominantly Filipino, with a few international comfort food items like their spicy pasta negra. For Pinoy options, you’ve got to try the embotido sandwich, which is based on the steamed pork meatloaf known all over the Philippines. They also have a full set of rice meals.

You’re eating surrounded by paintings, sculptures, and enough art-school energy to power a thesis defense. But this isn’t a style-over-substance place. It’s just more proof that Filipino restaurants in QC don’t all follow the same formula.

Still stumped on where to eat in Quezon City? Art Circle Cafe should be answering that question.

Gubat

If you’re going to eat Filipino food in Quezon City, you might as well eat it the way it’s meant to be eaten. With your hands.

Gubat is a full kamayan spot. No plates or utensils, just banana leaves, scooped rice, and the steady glare from everybody judging your foreign form. The staff will hand you utensils if you ask, but the real move is to dive in, elbows out.

The food is honest and straightforward. It pretty much boils down to rice meals, but prepared with plenty of imagination. I have a eaten a million fried fish rice meals in my time in this country but I’m not sure I have ever had it done with blue marlin fried in butter in garlic, But I did at gubat. And yes, it was awesome. In addition, they make the best homemade calamansi juice you will find anywhere in the NCR

But it’s the setting that really sets this place apart. Gubat feels like a jungle compound tucked behind a wall of concrete. It’s lush, quiet, and wrapped in water features.

It’s a full sensory reset in the middle of a hectic metropolitan city. But don’t get too comfortable. You’re about to walk into a pork-stained gauntlet of lechon, and it only gets heavier from here.

Elar’s Lechon

If you’re determined to find lechon in Quezon City, Elar’s is non-negotiable. It’s a full-blown pork compound. Restaurant, takeaway carving station, and a whole lechon pickup zone, all jammed into one massive corner lot.

The restaurant feels frozen in time, somewhere between 1970 and the Brady Bunch. You line up outside, wait with security and plastic chairs, then order from a window and grab your food turo-turo style.

Their lechon is the star, obviously. The dinuguan and sinigang baboy hold their own too, and that’s just the start. There’s a literal metric ton of options.The portions are generous and the flavors taste like they’ve been doing this for decades, because they have.

They open at 8am and close when the trays are empty. If you’re wondering where to eat in Quezon City and lechon’s on your mind, you already know where to go.

Mila’s Lechon

If La Loma is the lechon capital of Metro Manila, Mila’s is one of its anchor tenants. This spot serves every baboy-based dish you can think of, all in a carinderia-style setup where trays of pork stretch from wall to wall.

But the real flex? Their own lechon roasting station next door. You can literally watch the pigs go from spit to chopping board. Staff might even invite you behind the building to see the roasting in action. Most lechon joints don’t offer that, because very few still roast in La Loma.”

This is as close to the source as you’re going to get in Quezon City without cooking it yourself. It’s gritty, it’s real, and it’s exactly what Filipino food looks like before it gets dressed up.

Mang Tomas Native Lechon

No, this has nothing to do with the sweet liver sauce that is popular throughout Luzon. But down the road from Mila’s, you’ll find Mang Tomas Native Lechon. Just a tiny shopfront with a few spits, a wooden chopping block and an couple handling business.

There’s no seating or dining area. Just slabs of freshly roasted lechon hacked to order and wrapped up to go. It’s takeout or nothing. You can eat it right on the side of the road, they don’t give a shit.

Whether they roast the pigs themselves or source them elsewhere, I have no idea, nor does it matter. The skin’s crispy, the meat’s juicy, and it hits every craving you walked up with.

In a neighborhood packed with lechon, this spot proves you don’t need size or hype to pull it off. You just need good pork.

Hungry Neighbors

They call themselves an American restaurant. The reviews are mixed. And if you’re scrolling for Filipino food in Quezon City, this spot probably doesn’t even show up.

But Hungry Neighbors delivers where it counts. Their beef salpicao hits with a hefty garlic punch. The smoked bangus rice meal is balanced, flaky, and one you won’t forget. And the aligue pasta might be the most dangerous thing on the menu. It’s rich, salty, and borderline addictive with it’s crab fat goodness.

It’s a proper sit-down spot with a full bar and real service. The menu leans Filipino in ways they don’t advertise, but the results speak for themselves.

It might not be what you expected. But if you’re still wondering where to eat in Quezon City, this one’s worth walking into blind.

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Map of Featured Restaurants in QC

Here’s a quick look at every spot mentioned. If you’re hungry and already in QC, this should save you some scrolling.

Where to eat in Quezon City: Final Verdict

Quezon City is massive, messy, and packed with more restaurants than you could ever sort through. This list doesn’t cover everything, but I am trying to cut through the nonsense that everybody screams you need to try.

These are the places that stood out for the food, the setting, or the fact that they’re doing something unique. Some are old institutions, some are low-key standouts, and a few will probably piss someone off for even being included. If you’re one of the ones pissed about it, suck it. I’m not here to list every safe pick. I’m here to tell you what’s worth your appetite.

If you’ve eaten at any of these, drop your take in the comments. And if you think I missed something? Good. That’s what the comment box is for

Where to Eat in Quezon City – FAQ

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