Marks & Spencer Food Hall: Your wine-stop shop
MANILA, Philippines - Discover the Tastes of Great Britain,” said Marks & Spencer’s picturesque garden setup located at North Court, Power Plant Mall last June 24 to celebrate the opening of its third modernized M&S Food Hall in the Philippines, the cherry-on-top of the new M&S boutique format where the men’s and women’s clothing, accessories, and lingerie, which the brand is known for, are now presented in flattering lighting, modern interiors, and seasonal imagery.
Welcoming guests and mall-goers were Marilou Pineda, Thomas Gray, Chris Tantoco, Bienvenido Tantoco Sr.; Bienvenido “Rico” Tantoco Jr., Zenaida Tantoco, Maritess Tantoco-Enriquez, and Steven Sarmienta, who led the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Renowned sax player Vince Lahorra filled the venue with soothing tunes.
The M&S brand has over 200 award-winning wines and the Power Plant Mall food hall carries 129. “The way the range is built is a ‘best of’ range from each category from the UK stores where there are 5,000 products,” Gray explains, having worked on this selection process in his last post within the brand. This cuts it down to 650 kinds of ambient food, room temperature food, savories, confectionary, and sweets offered in Manila, all of the best quality and responsibly sourced. (M&S moved to 100 percent Fairtrade Tea and Coffee in 2006 and uses only free range eggs in all its food ranges since 2002.)
Also gracing the opening was L’Opera Group president and CEO Paolo Nesi, a trained sommelier from the Associazione Italiana Sommelier who after giving a quick talk on wine, could not help but express his excitement about the growing wine-drinking culture in the Philippines.
“When I came here in 1994 from Italy, it was hard to find good wine. When I opened L’Opera, a lot of the Filipinos came to the restaurant with a bottle of expensive cognac or whiskey and drink them with ice or soda together with the food. A lot switched from sweet wine to dry and considered it great,” he recalled.
