Everything about Michelin-Selected Uma Nota Manila at the Shangri-La The Fort dazzles. The award-winning interiors, designed by Asmaa Said of Dubai-based The Odd Duck Studio, celebrate São Paulo’s Nipo-Brasileiro subculture — and they do so with breathtaking conviction. At the center of the expansive, high-ceilinged main dining room — also called The Living Room — hangs the “Hanging Tree,” an art installation of petrified wood adorned with ficus foliage and cherry blossoms. It is, in a word, resplendent.

The kitchen is equally arresting. Venezuelan Chef Andres Rendon brings a formidable pedigree: he worked in Dubai where he was sous chef at St. Regis Downtown Dubai. During his years in Dubai, he received training under legendary Iron Chef star Masaharu Morimoto, which deepened his mastery of Japanese cooking techniques.

He later worked as head chef at Ichu, a noted Nikkei restaurant in Hong Kong, before moving to Manila to take over the kitchen at Uma Nota.  He was kitchen overseer when Uma Nota, in October 2025,  was recognized by the Michelin Guide for its cuisine, which we sampled recently.

New Chef’s Menu

At Uma Nota’s Meiji Room — its walls graced by a mural depicting migration by the Japanese to Brazil — we sat down to a new Chef’s Menu by Rendon where each plated dish came to our table as a veritable work of art. The setting was very much appropriate to the fare: Nipo-Brasileiro cuisine, born of the Japanese journey to Brazil in waves during the early 1900s. 

Brazil today is home to roughly two million individuals of Japanese descent, the largest Nikkei population outside Japan. These immigrants reshaped Brazilian agriculture and, over time, gave rise to a vibrant cuisine blending East Asian techniques with South American ingredients. 

Without their native staples, early Nihonjin settlers substituted short-grain rice with cassava and cornmeal, and familiar fish with Amazonian varieties. A culinary identity — distinct, alive, irreducible — emerged from that necessity.

Quintessential ‘salgado’ 

Chef Andres’ new Chef’s Menu gave us a taste last week of exactly that kind of evolved Nipo-Brasileiro cuisine, starting with the Pastel de Carne, a quintessential salgado: thin, crisped pastry with wagyu. 

Then came Hamachi Kobujime Tiradito and Atum Nihon — dried kelp-cured yellowtail and lean, deep-red cuts of tuna crudo, scented with citrus and herbs. 

Fresh, precise, and perfectly calibrated to prime the palate for what followed: Feijoada: a black bean stew with pork, orange, fried banana, and rice crisps. Astounding.

The subsequent progression of dishes drew audible oohs and aahs from the table, and none more so than the Lobster em Moqueca — lobster in a silken broth with toasted cassava, accompanied by tapioca bread with cheese and honey chili. One could eat the bread alone and be satisfied; dipped into the velvety emulsion bathing the lobster, it became something else entirely.

Yakiniku-glazed lamb

The meat course brought a yakiniku-glazed Australian lamb chop — tender, deeply flavored and genuinely one of the most delectable I’ve had in recent memory. The meal concluded with açaí and yuzu granita and petits fours: crispy cones filled with passion fruit, dark chocolate, and sea salt.

What a true tour de force of a menu, in arguably one of the most gorgeous dining establishments to open in the metropolis. 

Saludo, Chef Andres Rendon, siblings Alexis and Laura Offe, and their partner, British-Filipino entrepreneur Michael Needham, for bringing Uma Nota to Manila. Obrigado!

Useful facts: Uma Nota Manila is located at Shangri-La The Fort, 30th Street corner 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Metro Manila. The establishment is beneath the main level of Shangri-la The Fort. 

Opening hours are from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily. Evening hours are 6 p.m. to 12NN. on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays; 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays; and 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.