After the colonization of the Americans, the Manila Hotel came into prominence for wedding banquets but until the middle Thirties it was strictly white turf. Mod wedding receptions were held at Legaspi Landing, jutting out to Manila, and Banahaw Restaurant. Others took to the Panciteria Antiguas of the day. In the late Thirties there were Casa Manana at then Dewey Boulevard, the Jai-Alai Sky Room on Taft, and the Moonlit Terrace, on Avenida Rizal.
Postwar Manila, grown metropolitan, had a wider choice for its long table galas. Either the Winter Garden or the Selecta, on Roxas Boulevard, in the 1950s, and in the 1960’s: New Europe, the Round Table and Jade Vine. The Manila Hilton, by Luneta, and Hotel Intercontinental-Manila, in Makati, were, in the Sixties, the early “five-star” hotels. An elite venue was Manila Polo Club (at its postwar clubhouse in Makati since 1950; though not until 1965, with election of its first Filipino president, did it shed its unblinkingly white image). Solitary at EDSA was the very proper Madrid Restaurant.
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Source:
Alvina, C. & Sta. Maria, F. 1987. Essays on Philippine Culture.
