Cebu pizza chain leads 1st 5-Star Eats Awards winners
MANILA, Philippines — Community restaurants and micro, small, and medium food enterprises were feted in the inaugural 5-Star Eats Awards hosted by superapp Grab Philippines.
Nominated and victorious establishments are all nationwide merchants included in the platform's 5-Star Eats program which accounts for mechants with at least a 4.5 star-rating on the app, have a limited number of branches, and other operational factors like quality standard and service fulfillment.
The ceremony was held last September 4 in a Makati hotel where Grab Philippines' Director for Commercial Cams Tuason began the evening thanking program members for "carrying communities" and "bringing kababayans" with them.
"We are not crowning the largest brands with big budgets but the merchants that go beyand that, earning the repeated trust of Filipino diners," Tuason also said. "You earned this one order, one good review at a time."
The victors
Winners were chosen by three measures: People's Verdict from users, Experts' Validation from a blind tasting judged by food experts, journalists and content creators and Data's Proof from the platform's service metrics.
Cebu City-based Alberto's Pizza was the night's big winner as it took home Merchant of the Year as well as the Regional award for Visayas. The other Regional honors went to L.A. Bakeshop (Luzon), Kyu Kyu Ramen 99 (Metro Manila), and Chikoy's Lugawan (Mindanao).
Wok It Out won the Viral Hit Award, Go! Salads was named the 5-Star Dine Out Restaurant, and Claudette's was named the platform's Rising Star.
Platinum honors were given to Mylene's Ensaymada and Banana Cake for the GrabFood Exclusive Star Award, Puno's Ice Cream for the Velocity Award, I Love Milktea for the Sulit Award, Cafe Obra for the Coffee Award, Fruitas for the Dessert Award, and Auntie Anne's for both All-Day Breakfast and Snack Awards.
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Some establishments were awarded for specific dishes they serve. The following received platinum honors in the Excellence categories as cuisine icons:
- 5-Star Plate: Cake2Go for its Toblerone Overload
- Filipino: Vito's BBQ for its Boneless Chicken Plate
- Korean: Samgyeop Nyeomon for its Beef Samgy Rice
- Japanese: Sushi Nori for its Aburi Poké
- Thai: Thai Dayo Soi for its Chicken Pad Thai
- Italian: Cheezmozza for its Combination Pizza
- Chinese: Wangfu Chinese Cafe for its Salted Fried Chicken
- Indian: Al Jabrez Halal Restaurant for its Beef Biryani
- American: Go! Salads for its 22oz The Guzzler Smoothie
Visibility and expansion
Tuason also sat down with members of the media including Philstar.com to discuss 5-Star Eats, both the program and the inaugural awards.
"When we launched the program, it was really meant to give additional visibility to some of our merchants who have been doing amazing things, delivering quality food consistently, great service," said the executive.
After reiterating how the awards were designed across Choice, Excellence, and Performance categories, Tuason noted how much of the awardees are based or originated outside the capital region.
That, for her, is a reflection of more merchants, even within Metro Manila, are onboarding the platform and falling within the program's ratings, service quality, and operations reliability to be worthy of recognition.
"For me, it's not really a surprise, but it was more of a pleasant revelation that really, us working with the merchants, these metrics are improving across the board," Tuason ended.
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