No frills, just the important things

WITH THE opening of Seda Hotel BGC’s second tower comes the reimagining of its signature buffet restaurant, Misto.

Misto opened late last month, showing off prime cuts of beef, lamb, and pork; a tempura station; a noodle station with customized offerings; salad greens and fruits on ice; Napoletana pizza with an extra thin, airy crust made from genuine caputo flour; and piping hot Indian dishes from the tandoori oven. All of this will be available for seven days a week at P888. Old favorites from Misto like the Osso Bucco Lamb Shanks, Grilled Cedar Plank Salmon, Lasagna, Crispy Tadyang and Bagnet will still be made available at the buffet; and when it isn’t, it will be on an à la carte basis.

The restaurant now serves 220 people. “With 500 rooms, we really need to have a restaurant that can cater to at least 200,” said Seda Group Director for Sales and Marketing Melissa Carlos.

The hotel has jumped up from having 179 rooms to 500 with the hotel’s expansion, which took three years. The renovated hotel comes with a shiny new lobby, more parking spaces, a ballroom that can fit 300 people, and several function rooms. Plans to improve its bar, Straight Up, are also in the works.

There are more than 300 new rooms slated for use in the hotel, but for now, only the Deluxe rooms will be put to use — the suites will have to wait for later in the year. Environmentally friendly toiletries have also been placed in the hotel, care of an Australian company, complete with biodegradable plastic containers.

“[During] the time that we were just opening the hotel, we realized that we didn’t have enough rooms,” said Ms. Carlos. She also said that the demand for more rooms in the hotel came to a point that they would reach almost full capacity during the weekends.

It used to be that Seda BGC was one of the few hotels in that financial district, but since it opened, it has seen the rise of more luxurious properties like the Shangri-La at the Fort and the Grand Hyatt. Ms. Carlos admits that they exist on different price points and categories, and affirms that the Seda expansion will only lead to improvements, as well as retaining the brand of service that Seda customers have been familiar with. “We have sustained the level of service — still the same efficient service. It’s a no-frills hotel. We want to make sure that we provide the important things that you need when you stay at a hotel.” — Joseph L. Garcia