Launched in 2023 as a home-based private dining concept, Mireia has evolved into a full restaurant atop the Levanto Building. Led by self-taught chef Mark Dee, it retains past favorites while introducing new, personal dishes—now served à la carte to encourage repeat visits.
“When I saw this space last year, when it was still a bare shell, I thought, I don’t think it would be too bad opening a restaurant with this view,” Mark Dee told guests as he hopped from table to table one Saturday night. He is the chef and owner of Mireia, a restaurant that opened in Makati last February.
It is not a new concept: in May 2023, Dee opened his house for a private dining experience in his kitchen, where he served a six-course tasting menu. He moved to the Levanto Building to serve more guests, opening the first of several upscale restaurants (and a wine bar) set to launch there this year. “I treat this space as just an extension of our home,” Dee told me. Mireia’s interiors have a midcentury charm, the floors and ceilings painted orange, the slanting panoramic windows overlooking the Makati skyline.
For the love of the art of entertaining
Dee, 40, is a self-taught chef. He’s still reluctant with the title, calling himself an entrepreneur first, then a home cook next. He grew up with a family of cooks—his parents were in the food industry, doing catering and once running a Filipino restaurant in BGC called Guava—but Dee didn’t see himself in that path. He studied Public Administration at the University of the Philippines Diliman and worked as a government consultant in San Rafael, Bulacan. He found his way into cooking when, bored in the province, he would tune in to the Asian Food Channel with fascination; after three years, he returned to Manila and started a meal delivery business in 2015.
“I never really imagined I’d be cooking myself,” he said. Ten years, a few business closures, and a pandemic later, he and his wife, Kissel, opened Mireia out of their penchant for hosting friends and family. It soon became known to many. “At the end of the day,” he said, “I really love entertaining.”
A new à la carte menu
An apparent change at the new Mireia is the à la carte menu. The choice was suggested by some of their loyal guests, who have been asking for it since the restaurant’s private dining days. The new menu has four sections: bites, shared plates, mains, and dessert. It straddles bistro and fine-dining territories: everything is shared—or can be shared.
The smallish appetizers are served in two pieces (except the shrimp wontons, which come in three). The shared plates and mains are also ostensibly portioned for two people, while some desserts, though plated for one, can be lightly enjoyed by a pair. The portions varied for light and heavy eaters. You can’t eat solo at Mireia—the restaurant requires a minimum of two diners to reserve a table.
It’s obvious that the intention is to provide an experience that is at once intimate and convivial, as though you were in a friend’s home for dinner. Dee introduced each dish to each table—occupied mostly by couples and families—pouring wine and chatting with guests. The speaker blasted house music throughout the night; as the song “Marea (we’ve lost dancing)” by Fred again played, it was hard not to bust a move as I chewed on a steak tartare.
A sublime multisensory experience
Dee checks off the luxury ingredients list like a gourmet showing off to his epicurean circle: caviar, truffles, foie gras, Wagyu beef, French duck breast, Hokkaido scallops, Iberico ham. These are easy to mess up, to let the opulence belie a lack of imagination and skill. But Dee treats them with a cosmopolitan flair, so that each ingredient shines in a different light.
Truffle is used in fried rice, served with a cured egg yolk sitting on a nest of seared Wagyu and fried enoki; the truffle’s smoky notes intensify the wok hei—that delightful charred flavor characteristic of Cantonese cuisine—in the hefty, savory affair. In the scallop tartelette, shaved truffle is mixed with shio koji (a funky Japanese marinade) to cure the flesh for two hours; the thin shell is carpeted with corn purée and a spoonful of scallops, then crowned with caviar and a fleck of gold leaf. I had it in two bites, and it was divine.
A culinary journey around the world
“Borderless cuisine” is how Dee describes his cooking style, a product of his past travels abroad. He told me that when traveling with his family, he would choose hotels near the market and cook with whatever he bought in the hotel room kitchen. It’s apparent that Dee is partial to the cuisines of Southeast and East Asia, but he also plays with French, Italian, Spanish, and Mexican forms and flavors.
Take, for example, the roasted lamb ribs that draw inspiration from Balinese sticky pork ribs, glazed with tamarind, agave syrup, and kecap manis (an Indonesian condiment made with palm sugar and soy sauce), and dotted with capsicum sauce and salsa verde. The sweet glaze had a tang that cut through the meat, glistening as one sliced through the soft fat and flesh. There’s an option to eat the ribs with sides: I had papadam and hummus, but thoroughly enjoyed them with the truffle rice, which can be ordered as a side for P350. (But, unless you’re ordering for a large party, I don’t recommend getting the Wagyu truffle rice and lamb ribs together as mains, as their heft can cloy.)
A taste of home
Not everything is a reinterpretation, though. Some are straightforward dishes, like the seared French duck breast and foie gras, accompanied by cherry gel and a cream sauce with black garlic and mushroom. There’s also the milk-and-cookies dessert, which was, in fact, just two mini chocolate-chip cookies and a cold glass of horchata, brightened with nutmeg and orange zest. Kissel told me that this was a product of her foray into baking during the pandemic for her kids: Maxwell, now 5, and Mireia, 3. When they were completing the menu at the first Mireia, they thought of punctuating the meal with cookies as they did in their family.
The cookies were, indeed, well-made, the shards of Belgian and local chocolate melting with the warm, yielding crumb. After a meal between continents, a treat from the oven and fridge.
Mireia is located at the top floor of Levanto Building, 389 Jupiter St., Makati City.
Frequently Asked Questions
Mark Dee is a self-taught chef and former government consultant who began his journey by watching the Asian Food Channel; he eventually opened a meal delivery business in 2015 before launching Mireia as a private dining experience in his own home.
The restaurant is located on the top floor of the Levanto Building on Jupiter Street, Makati; its interiors feature midcentury charm with orange ceilings and panoramic windows overlooking the city skyline.
The new location has shifted from a fixed six-course tasting menu to an à la carte menu divided into four sections (bites, shared plates, mains, and dessert), though it still requires a minimum of two diners per reservation.
He describes it as “borderless cuisine,” featuring dishes like scallop tartelette with shio koji and caviar, and roasted lamb ribs inspired by Balinese flavors glazed with tamarind and kecap manis.
The dessert, featuring mini chocolate-chip cookies and horchata, was created by Mark’s wife, Kissel, who began baking them for their children, Maxwell and Mireia, during the pandemic.
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