The city’s favourite kitchens, on the food floor

Paolo leads leasing at a large mall in Bonifacio Global City, in Manila. He has seven empty food units to fill. Every mall chases the same big chains, and they drive hard bargains. The local favourites with queues out the door are harder to find, and nobody on his team has time to eat their way across Metro Manila. The empty units cost the mall every month. With xMap Flows, Paolo built Matchmaker. On the first of every month, across Metro Manila, Matchmaker finds the independent restaurants rated four and a half or more, keeps the ones with hundreds of reviews, scores how well each would fit the mall’s food floor, keeps the top fifteen, and sends each owner a first hello, once Paolo approves it. This month, Matchmaker found forty-two loved local restaurants with a single branch. Paolo’s team met the top fifteen, and three signed, including a family-run lechon place from Quezon City that now has a queue on the second floor. Paolo stopped chasing the chains. Now the city’s favourites come to him.

The story in words