Max's Restaurant

Max's began in Quezon City in 1945, when a schoolteacher named Maximo Gimenez started feeding the American soldiers who kept turning up at his house, and his niece's fried chicken became the reason people came back. It has since grown into one of the Philippines' best-loved family restaurant chains. In 2022 a franchise opened its first New York room here, half a block off Roosevelt Avenue, in the space where Rosario's Ihawan used to be.

It looks like a fast-food counter and is not: you sit, you order, and the chicken arrives unbattered, its skin thin and crackling, to be eaten the Manila way with banana ketchup. The lechon kawali sisig — crisp pork belly chopped with onion, scallion and chili — is the dish many regulars prefer to the chicken. Round out a group order with kare-kare made with fried pork belly, a pot of bulalo, crispy pata, and halo-halo to finish.