Secret Door — Restaurant in Makati

Updated Review for Secret Door – 1 out of 5 stars

This place is chaos in a bottle. Secret Door is filled with scammers, sleazy foreigners, hookers, and thick clouds of disgusting cigarette smoke. You’ll leave feeling like you crawled through an ashtray. The drinks are overrated, the food is trash, and the whole vibe feels like desperation trying to look cool.

But let me take a minute to talk about the owner.

At first I thought he was rude, but I realized he’s managing a bar where people come to drink, do drugs, and act out. That’s not easy. It’s on the customers to control themselves, and most of them can’t. I actually watched him come out to deal with a crying grown man who had crossed a line with one of the servers. The customer was being a total dick and got called out for it.

The owner handled it. No security, no drama — just stepped in, told the guy to shut up, and put him in his place. I don’t like the guy personally, but I’ll give credit where it’s due. Most owners hide in the back. This dude stepped into the fire.

Still, the place is grimy. Loud, smokey, full of weird energy. Staff are decent. They’re just there to survive the shift and collect a paycheck. I get it. Everyone in that building is there for something — to make money, to escape something, to numb out. And that’s what it feels like. A numbing zone.

If you like chaos, go for it. If you’re looking for anything remotely clean, chill, or classy, look elsewhere.

Response to the owner after his reply:

Appreciate the reply, though I found some parts of it a little dismissive.

To clarify: the review came from a real experience, not a fake account, not a one-off grudge, and definitely not a “drive-by” rating. I visited, I paid, I observed, and I left my feedback — honestly and without exaggeration.

Someone who appeared to be in charge did in fact step in during the incident I mentioned. Whether or not that was you is beside the point — it happened, and it was worth noting. I also gave credit where due.

As for the rest of the atmosphere, the smoke, the crowd dynamic — it’s reflective of the environment I walked into. If that’s not the usual experience, then I hope it was just a bad night. If it is the usual, then my review stands.

This isn’t about starting a dialogue. It’s about sharing a firsthand perspective that others might find useful. Take it...

There is no ventilation in here and when the crowd picks at night it gets filled with dangerous fumes and people exhale. I got a massive chest infection the day after I was there.

The bottle keep is extremely misorganised, even if you demand to get a tag or token for your bottle they tell you we will remember you and refrain from giving you anything but good luck when you return and ask for your bottle and they could say, sorry sir we can't find it 😅, I waited 30 minutes and they looked around and finally they told me seems like I've never had a bottle in there. 🤣🤣🤣🤣😡😡😡😡😡

I urge the manager to:

for the health and safety of your own staff that work inside that Coal Mine every day, and for the sake of the general health of the public, add a few good vents in there to at least suck the fume out!!!!!!!!!!!!! ,it won't cost anything comparing to what this bar is earning.

Organise your staff and tell them to tag bottles and give the owner a receipt or a token to avoid this silly mess.

I hope the business owner reads this.

And to the staff: !!!!!!!!!! DO NOT WORK IN THERE WITHOUT A PROPER VENTILATION IN PLACE OR SOON OR LATER YOU WILL GET A KIND OF CANCER OR AN ACUTE LUNG DISEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the mask that you're wearing...

The seats feel so dirty it looked like it hasn't been cleaned in ages. It also has so many holes all over it probably from people usingthe seats as ashtray. Servers are very nice at serving you as long as you give them tips nevermind the fact that they charge you with a 10% service charge. Once they realize you wont be tipping them (coz you thought you didn't need to since they charge for their service anyways) they start ignoring you as if you don't exist. We came when they were having the "90s nostalgia" theme so most songs were old. Understandable. But i thought they would have played some famous songs from that era. But instead they played some boring songs. So boring there were barely anyone dancing on the floor besides the very few highly intoxicated patrons. They had a billiards area where so many people were just standing around looking and...it feels more like a billiard house than a "club with a billiard table" in...