Inhabiting the second floor of the first ever one-stop-shop Bench lifestyle building (what was previously a three-storey American Eagle boutique and also under the Bench group) and located on Bonifacio High Street is the all new Bench Café. On the ground floor, one will find Bench retail (think along the lines of make-your-own-jeans and T-shirts) and then on the third floor, loyal punters can get pampered at Bench Barber and/or Bench Fix.

Falling in delicious step with Bench’s “live life with flavour” hashtags, what exactly is the Bench Café pitch? “We definitely wanted to do Pinoy family style for the menu, hence we have the Bench/Tos, a play on the Japanese word ‘bento.’ We call it glamorised turo-turo,” explains Foodee’s Eric Dee. Inspired by the bento meals of Japan, this brilliant spin-off recreates the warmth of large familial gatherings through individually portioned set meals that are perfect for every individual’s palate. Must-try combos include the B6 (dancing fish, kaldereta, crispy dilis, Bench salsa with white rice), the B8 (lechon kawali, laing, atsara, Bench Salsa with white rice), and the B12 (pork BBQ, gising-gising, Green Mango Salad, Bench Salsa, plain rice).

“They do the design, aesthetics and marketing,” explains Dee, referring to Chan’s partner, Miguel Pastor’s unisex millennial vibe, adding “and we handle the menu and day-to-day operations.”

The menu embraces and employs a lot of native locally-sourced ingredients and marries elements of traditional Pinoy cooking with modern. Dee has worked closely with Foodee’s Corporate Executive Chef, Carlo Miguel, to achieve this “love local” concept. Prime examples of such include the sisig lettuce cups with calamansi foam, the crispy Tinapa Cones, the Tsoknut ice cream sandwich (toasted ensaymada filled with tsoknut ice cream), and the Flan B (leche flan with macapuno). Also found on the menu are street food stapleswhich come by way of silog, merienda, halo-halo, and kapeng barako.

“We are classic, classic Filipino,” asserts Dee. “When I say adobo, we give you adobo. You want a kaldareta? We give you a classic kaldereta. You want inihaw pusit? You get that. We just try to figure out what we can amplify in the dish… For example – in a kare kare – what can we upgrade to give you a better version of what comes from your lola’s or your nanay’s [kitchen]?”

Case in point: “Our kare kare is “lechon kawali style,” so you that get that nice crispy richness of the pork. Then we looked into the components of a bistek Tagalog. You have the beef, onions and steak sauce. Our version uses a beef short rib, organic onions and then we sous vide it. For our adobo, we use a smaller native garlic which renders a more pungent flavour. It’s all in the technique and execution,” shares Dee.

Further to that point, Dee concludes, “I think to glamorise Filipino food, all you have to do is make sure everything is not drowning in sauce. Take our dinuguan, for example. Typically, when you think of dinuguan, you think of a black pool of randomness. So for our version, we separate the meat and fry it until it’s golden brown and put on top of a dinuguan sauce so you get that sensation of all the yumminess in a dinuguan, but better.”

The cocktails created by mixologist Kalel Demetrio, meanwhile, are as delicious as their names are cute. Do try the gin-based Circa 1987 (when Suyen was founded) or the Pinay Colada.

For now, Bench Café is making waves and receiving raves but, reveals Dee, “We won’t always have a Bench Café in a Bench store. Our next few cafés will be standalones but one thing’s for sure is in our initial expansion plan, we’ll have our halo-halo bars in the stores.” Watch this space.

Bench Café is located at the 2nd floor of the Bench flagship store on 9th Ave. cor. Lane O, Bonifacio High Street, BGC. For more updates, follow Bench Café on Facebook and @benchcafeph on Instagram.