Some tasty fried food with your beer? Welcome to Prost

In the early evening, after a hard day’s work toiling in the office cubicle or pounding the unpaved, pedestrian-unfriendly streets of Manila, the primal urge to sink into a barstool and have a beer and forget, well, everything is undeniable. 

At Prost, German for “beer,” restaurateurs Dom Hernandez and Mark von Grabowski created a casual eatery that embraces the thirsty diner with warm, loving, German-esque arms. 

“Prost is half-modern, half-traditional with clean, straight lines and medieval-like chandeliers,” says partner Dom Hernandez. “An onyx lit bar gives the place a beer-like hue that is actually relaxing to the eyes.” 

Inspired by Mark’s grandmother’s home cooking, the menu is essentially bar chow, plenty of fried, unhealthy grub that goes well with a cool, crisp lager. There’s the traditional — crispy pork knuckle, sauerkraut, 20 kinds of sausage, Tafelspitz (German for “tip of meat for the table”) or corned beef brisket in broth served with horseradish cream sauce, plated with boiled cabbage and potatoes; and the not-so-trad — speck in a maple horseradish sauce and mini-Reuben spring rolls. 

The spring rolls are an attempt to reconstruct the sandwich staple into a tasty, beer-friendly version: corned beef, sauerkraut and Emmental lovingly enveloped in a spring roll wrapper and then deep-fried. 

If there’s anything that calls to a thirsty, beer-swilling diner, it’s the fried stuff, and Prost has helpfully heeded the call, with a menu that even includes a “fried platter,” which is just as it’s referred to: consisting of shrimp, fish and chicken. There’s the chicken schnitzel — chicken flattened, breaded then fried, served with a green salad — and even duck-fat fries. 

Sausages are a highlight here, served with a helping of fries and, sometimes, French beans. The Nuernberger spiral sausage, with a sharing portion generous enough to satiate a small family, is a skinny, looped German bratwurst made from lean pork and beef. 

German comfort food calls for no-frills cooking, but the Prost menu is an evolving ecosystem of influences and re-imagined elements taken from other cultures. 

Take their Hoff burger: a tasty premium Angus beef patty (best done medium) on a semi-sweet bagel (soft enough to absorb the juices from the meat) topped with pesto cream cheese, salsa, alfalfa sprouts and an organic fried egg. 

“It’s not German per se, but it’s essentially home: a straightforward, satisfyingly good time,” says Mark von Grabowski.

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Prost is located at the ground floor of Fort Pointe Two building, 28th street, City Center (otherwise known as The Fort Strip, next to Early Bird Breakfast), Bonifacio Global City (tel. 828-3940).