The iconic “I ❤️ Boracay” sign along Bulabog Beach, one of the island’s most recognizable photo stops.
What began as lunch at The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar opened the door to Banana Bay Boracay, a thoughtful approach to island hospitality, and a side of Boracay, Philippines, that deserves far more attention.
Most people arrive in Boracay already knowing what they came to see.
White Beach has earned its reputation: powdery sand, turquoise water, sunsets, and the stretch of restaurants and resorts that have become almost synonymous with the island itself.
But on this trip, part of what I wanted to understand was what existed beyond the Boracay everyone already knew.
That brought us to Bulabog Beach in Boracay, Philippines, and, one afternoon, to The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar.
The restaurant sits within Banana Bay Boracay, but the first thing I noticed was not the hotel.
It was the setting.
Depending on where you choose to sit, lunch can overlook the blue of the Banana Bay pool or face outward toward Bulabog Beach. It is the kind of space that immediately slows the pace of a meal.
We had come specifically to experience The Monkey Tree for our Where to Dine discoveries, and our table quickly filled with dishes that reflected the restaurant’s personality: Chef J’s signature Laing with Lechon Kawali, Beef Rendang, Catch of the Day Crudo, and The Monkey Tree Cheeseburger.
The laing paired rich coconut flavors with crisp lechon kawali. The Beef Rendang leaned into Southeast Asian influence with slow-cooked beef, lemongrass, coconut curry sauce, and creamy potato croquettes. The crudo featured fresh fish cured with coconut vinegar, herbs, and anchovy oil, while the cheeseburger delivered something more familiar with two all-beef patties, bacon, tomato jam, cheddar, and brioche.
It was eclectic without feeling confused.
That became clearer once I sat down with Wendy Dy, co-owner of The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar and Banana Bay Boracay.
More Than a Hotel Restaurant
Wendy was very clear that The Monkey Tree was never intended to function merely as the restaurant attached to Banana Bay. The goal was to create a place people would deliberately seek out, whether or not they were staying at the hotel.
“We want people to come for the food,” she told me.
That distinction became easier to understand once she began talking about the menu itself.
Catch of the Day Crudo, cured in coconut vinegar with herbs and anchovy oil.
The Monkey Tree Cheeseburger, made with two all-beef patties, bacon, tomato jam, cheddar, and brioche.
The Monkey Tree may sit inside Banana Bay, but the menu is intended for everyone who finds their way to Bulabog, whether they are staying upstairs or not.
Wendy described the restaurant as having its own “Monkey Tree flair” — Filipino at its core, with regional influences and enough international range to reflect the mix of travelers who come through Boracay.
“We also need to highlight Filipino food,” she said, explaining that the menu goes beyond the most familiar national dishes and makes room for regional flavors as well.
Chef J’s Signature Laing with Lechon Kawali at The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar in Bulabog, Boracay.
Beef Rendang with potato croquettes, served overlooking Bulabog Beach.
The team is also introducing more vegan and health-conscious options, but Wendy kept returning to something much simpler than trends.
Ingredients.
“You can taste if it’s good or bad,” she said. No matter how skilled the cook is, the quality of what goes into the dish still matters.
That philosophy shows up in the sourcing as well, with the restaurant using local ingredients whenever possible rather than depending heavily on imports.
Then There Was the Coffee
I had ordered a Spanish latte.
What I did not know at the time was that coffee is one of the things The Monkey Tree takes particularly seriously.
One of the partners behind the restaurant used to be a barista, and that background still shapes the coffee program.
A Spanish latte at The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar, made with Philippine-grown coffee beans.
“Our coffee is one of our highlights,” Wendy told me.
The beans are sourced in the Philippines and carefully selected, with the former barista partner remaining hands-on in choosing what they serve.
It was a small detail, but it told me a lot about the place.
The Monkey Tree does not seem interested in treating any part of the experience as filler.
Someone cares about the food.
Someone cares about the coffee.
Someone cares about the design.
And that sense of personal investment became more obvious the longer we stayed.
The View Opened a Bigger Conversation
Sitting at The Monkey Tree also means sitting directly beside Bulabog.
And once Wendy started talking about this side of Boracay, our lunch became a much bigger conversation.
For many travelers, Boracay and White Beach are almost interchangeable.
But Bulabog has an identity of its own.
It is internationally recognized within the kiteboarding community and, during the right season, attracts riders from around the world.
Yet Wendy believes it remains overlooked.
As the conversation shifted from the restaurant to Bulabog itself, Wendy’s tone changed. She spoke less like a business owner promoting a location and more like someone deeply invested in what happens to this side of the island.
She talked about the boardwalk, the kiteboarding community, and the years of work by local stakeholders to keep Bulabog beautiful and viable.
“We’re trying to fight for this side of Boracay,” she said.
By then, I understood that she was not simply talking about the neighborhood surrounding her business. She was talking about a place she genuinely wanted to protect.
Walking around Bulabog, I understood the feeling.
It does not need to compete with White Beach because it offers something completely different.
It is quieter.
There is more room to move.
The atmosphere feels less saturated, and the presence of kiteboarding gives the area a character completely different from the western side of the island.
The more time I spent there, the more surprising it became that so many visitors could come to Boracay and never properly experience it.
A Hotel Designed to Belong Here
After lunch, Wendy asked a staff member to take us around Banana Bay Boracay.
We had not arrived intending to tour the hotel.
That made the experience even more interesting.
We had just spent lunch hearing about design, sustainability, local sourcing, and the importance of respecting the island. Then we were taken upstairs and given the chance to see how those ideas translated into the rooms themselves.
Banana Bay officially opened in November 2018, but Wendy told us its design story began years earlier.
She had been part of the design team from the beginning.
From the beginning, Wendy said, the team wanted the property to embrace local craftsmanship and use Filipino materials wherever possible.
Sustainable wood was incorporated into the rooms. Refillable bottles were introduced as part of an early effort to reduce single-use plastics. The property was intentionally kept relatively low-density instead of simply maximizing its height and footprint.
“We tried to minimize our impact on the island,” Wendy explained.
All of those decisions came back to one philosophy Wendy kept returning to.
“We had to adapt to the island, not the island adapt to us,” she explained.
That idea seemed to shape everything from the materials they chose to the scale of the property itself.
The rooms range from Superior and Deluxe categories to balcony and pool-access accommodations, with the Suite offering the most expansive version of the property’s design language.
Moving through them after hearing Wendy’s story made the details more meaningful.
The wood was no longer just wood.
The textures were no longer simply decorative.
The relatively restrained scale of the building was no longer an aesthetic choice alone.
There was an intention behind it.
Wendy put it simply: “It’s a hotel in Boracay. It’s not a Manila hotel in Boracay.”
That may have been the clearest description of the property all afternoon.
Meeting Mac
After the tour, I also had the opportunity to meet Mac, Wendy’s husband.
By that point, I had already heard Wendy talk about the amount of “love, sweat and tears” that had gone into building the property.
Speaking with Mac made it clear that the philosophy behind The Monkey Tree and Banana Bay is shared.
He spoke with pride about the choices they had made and, more importantly, about the way they see the other businesses and stakeholders in Bulabog.
Not as competitors.
As a community.
He acknowledged something that small independent properties on Boracay know very well: they cannot compete with the scale or resources of the island’s largest resorts.
“We can’t compete with the big resorts,” he told me.
But Mac did not speak about that as a disadvantage. What mattered more to him was what they could contribute — giving back to the island, protecting what makes it special, and making decisions that respect the very place that allows their businesses to exist.
“Without the island, we would not be here.”
And because of that, Mac did not only want us to tell people about The Monkey Tree or Banana Bay.
He wanted us to tell them about Bulabog.
That request said more about the place than any promotional pitch could have.
Bigger Than One Restaurant
That conversation changed the way I looked at the afternoon.
We had come to experience one restaurant.
But the people behind it kept directing our attention outward.
Toward Filipino ingredients.
Toward Philippine-grown coffee.
Toward local craftsmanship.
Toward sustainability.
Toward the staff.
Toward other stakeholders.
And most of all, toward the beach outside.
That is unusual.
Businesses naturally want visibility.
But there is something different about sitting with owners who tell you, essentially: Yes, tell people about us — but please tell them about this whole side of the island too.
It made the community philosophy feel real.
The Boracay We Nearly Missed
We had visited Boracay before without truly experiencing Bulabog.
I suspect many travelers have done the same.
White Beach is so celebrated, and so dominant in the way Boracay is presented to the world, that it can unintentionally make the rest of the island feel secondary.
But spending an afternoon at The Monkey Tree reminded me how much is lost when travel becomes a checklist of the most recognizable places.
We came for lunch.
We found Chef J’s Laing with Lechon Kawali, Beef Rendang, Crudo, a cheeseburger, and a Spanish latte made with more thought than I expected.
Then Wendy introduced us to the story behind the restaurant.
That story led us upstairs into Banana Bay.
And after the room tour, Mac brought us back outside again — to the community, to sustainability, and ultimately to Bulabog itself.
By the time we left, The Monkey Tree had given us exactly what a good Where to Dine discovery should.
A meal worth recommending.
But it also gave us context.
And context is what turns a recommendation into a travel story.
The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar deserves a place on a Boracay itinerary.
So does Banana Bay.
But perhaps the more important recommendation is the one Wendy and Mac kept returning to:
Cross over to Bulabog.
See this side of the island.
Meet the people who have chosen to build here.
And understand why they are working so hard to protect it.
Gurus Magazine Editor and Creative Director Jennie Salmorin with Wendy Dy, co-owner of The Monkey Tree Cafe & Bar and Banana Bay Boracay
