The White House Fusion Cuisine

The White House Fusion Cuisine & Wine Lounge was the first restaurant in Davao — and the first in Mindanao — to be cited by Philippine Tatler as one of the country's best restaurants. Chef-owner Cathy Binag has run the kitchen since the restaurant opened, and her tasting menu rotates monthly with the Mindanao produce calendar.

The restaurant occupies a restored 1950s ancestral home on J.P. Laurel Avenue, a two-storey timber-and-plaster villa that the Binag family converted into a restaurant in the early 2010s. The ground floor is the main dining room; the upper floor houses the wine lounge and a private dining room that seats twelve. The menu blends French technique, Japanese precision, and Filipino flavours — duck confit glazed with local honey, Japanese-inflected sashimi plates using tuna from General Santos, Wagyu beef finished with calamansi butter, hot-pot sukiyaki built around local mushrooms from Mount Apo's foothills.

The tasting menu — six to eight courses depending on the month — is the signature offering and runs to about ₱4,500 with wine pairing. The à la carte menu is strong enough to stand alone; the Wagyu, the duck leg confit, and the steak are the three most-ordered mains. Desserts are house-made: chocolate fondant with local cacao, calamansi posset, ube millefeuille.

The wine programme is the deepest in Davao outside Claude's, with a particular strength in Old World whites that pair with the Japanese-inflected plates. The restaurant is open for dinner only; lunch is reserved for private bookings.

The White House is Davao's proposal room. The upstairs private dining room — twelve seats, a separate wine vault, its own server — is bookable for exclusive use; for a proposal, chef Cathy will coordinate a custom tasting menu and a cake finish. For business dinners where the signal is 'I care about food', the ground-floor corner tables are the quiet pick.