Cebu for its rich history, remains hip, young, and dynamic leaving plenty of room for novel experiences and developments, particularly in its brewing hospitality and restaurant scenes. While Cebuanos may take pride in its rich culinary tradition, its diverse, cosmopolitan atmosphere is one that remains welcoming for new restaurant players from around the country. One such new entry is Manila-based Raintree Hospitality Group, who plans to plant a stake in the lifestyle boomtown, with its landmark restaurant Providore, set to open at the Summit Galleria. “We have always prided ourselves on ‘innovating hospitality’ which means creating interesting food experiences that are unique and specific to each location,” explains Raintree founder, Annabel Wisniewski of her 20-year old concept culinary and hospitality company’s timely entry in the Queen City. With exciting food developments that swept Manila’s gastronomic scene, from the cultural culinary hub Museum Café, refreshing café concepts as Chelsea Café and Banker’s Lounge, to exciting wining and dining establishments as Rocket Room and Chotto Matte, the Raintree Hospitality Group has managed to shift the metropolitan dining landscapes by introducing groundbreaking concepts in menu, dining service, and hospitality. “We design our restaurants and menus based on the market and we rarely repeat our concepts. We like our restaurants to be destinations in and of themselves,” Wisniewski affirms. Its first venture outside Manila, for instance, the beach café concept, Cha-Cha Café, has introduced Boracay Island to a solitary food hub that serves delectable beach food from all over the world. For Raintree Hospitality Group’s debut culinary offering at the Summit Galleria Cebu, it is introducing the market-style restaurant Providore, first opened at Bonifacio Global City, further enhanced to match the taste, life, and style of its future Cebuano clientele. “The Summit Galleria is a cool hotel with a hip design. So, we planned a beautiful restaurant Providore with four concepts in one,” Wisniewski explains. Providore will be located that the new hotel’s podium floor. Here, the lobby restaurant opens up into four hubs: the Pantry, a café and bakery that offers freshly-baked pastries and specialty brewed coffee in a casual environment, the Study, which is a breakaway from the customary lobby lounge, where guests and visitors can recharge both their gadgets and their appetites with a hearty menu offering, third is the Dining Room, which accommodates sit-down meals and table service in a swankier setting, and the Game Room, which offers entertainment for the kids during the day, and the adults during night time, with a lush and lively bar. “We hope our guests and locals appreciate an alternative approach to a ‘hotel restaurant’,” Wisniewski aims. As the Summit Galleria Cebu’s food and beverage partners, the Raintree Hospitality Group will also be offering a poolside Smoothie Bar, found on the refreshing indoor pool complex of the hotel located at the third floor. Quality service and appetizing banquet menus for the hotel’s well-appointed Ballroom and function rooms will likewise be laid out by the culinary experts from the Raintree group. “We are working on a “fun identity” for the menus and spaces which will be unusual and hopefully unique to Cebu. So, we are trying to get more creative than usual with the approach to the banquet and meeting menus,” Wisniewski promises. Aside from its exciting collaboration with a hallmark hotel property, the Raintree Hospitality Group is also looking forward to newer, more exciting frontiers that await their entry in the Visayan heartland. “It has truly been a pleasure to partner with Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC) and Summit Hotels and Resorts in opening the new Summit Galleria. The Team has been incredibly open-minded in planning the hotel and F&B concepts and supportive of the idea of bringing an independent restaurant company to do things “differently” compared to traditional hotels. One benefit of the partnership is that it enables us to open in Cebu which is a city we have been interested in for a long time,” Wisniewski reveals. But, certainly, what Raintree’s culinary entry greatly discovers in Cebu is something that rings true for centuries now. “In our recruitment process we have discovered a wealth of culinary talent in Cebu,” Wisniewski admits. “With Cebu’s great culinary tradition of grilled street food, kinilaw, lechon (of course), and its own versions of sinigang and adobo, we have a lot flavors and textures to look forward to.” And, just the same, the tasteful Cebuano’s awaiting the opening of Summit Galleria Cebu certainly does too.