East Village Gets Filipino Night Market Diner Hoy!, and Cocktails Are Skipped on Purpose

A new restaurant blending the energy of a Manila night market with the layout of an American diner is set to open at 1 Clinton St. in Manhattan's East Village this November. Hoy! comes from chef Cyed Adraincem, who plans to serve Filipino street food like lumpia, barbecue skewers and shake fries with homemade cheese powder in a space designed to feel casual, affordable and community-focused.

According to WhatNow, Adraincem is aiming to keep Hoy! super affordable and casual, with front-facing staff working a cocktail-bar or diner-style counter rather than table service. The menu will also include sandwiches and a pork longganisa burger topped with homemade atchara and a secret sauce. Notably, despite the bar-style counter setup, Hoy! will not serve cocktails at all — it will offer beer and wine instead, a deliberate choice that sets it apart from the drink-forward venues where Adraincem built his reputation.

That reputation runs deep in New York's cocktail world. Adraincem is a 15-year veteran of the city's hospitality scene who served as culinary director for Cocktail Kingdom Hospitality Group and ran the kitchen at Superbueno, the Mexican-American cantina on First Avenue, according to EV Grieve. Superbueno's food program helped the bar earn international acclaim, landing at No. 2 on The World's 50 Best Bars list in 2025 and No. 9 on North America's 50 Best Bars list in 2026, per En Primeur Club.

From Cocktail Bars to Street-Food Roots

Before turning to Hoy!, Adraincem developed travel-inspired bar food menus for other well-regarded New York cocktail spots, including spice-focused bar Mace in 2021 and the Japanese izakaya-style venue Katana Kitten, as reported by Forbes. That background in pairing street-food concepts with bar culture appears to be shaping Hoy!'s identity, even without the cocktails on the menu.

The name itself carries meaning. Per Adraincem, hoy is a Filipino expression Filipinos use to call someone or signal a problem or emotion, and the restaurant's interior is meant to evoke the atmosphere of a Manila night market, where vendors traditionally sell food, drinks, clothing and other goods side by side. Adraincem has said he wants to make Filipino food more accessible and educate diners along the way, and he recommends lumpia — which he calls a Filipino staple — as the dish for first-time visitors.

A Rare Manhattan Opening for Filipino Cuisine

Hoy!'s arrival is notable given how few Filipino restaurants currently operate in New York City; the WhatNow report notes the city has fewer than a dozen. Queens, particularly Woodside's Little Manila, remains the traditional center of Filipino commercial life in the city, home to roughly 50 Filipino-owned eateries and businesses, according to The FilAm. Manhattan's cluster has historically been much smaller by comparison.

The city's Filipino population is substantial even where restaurant representation has lagged. New York City is home to nearly 99,000 residents of Filipino descent, with over 41% naturalized U.S. citizens and nearly 41% born in the United States, per a 2025 demographic profile from the Asian American Federation. A separate workforce report from the same organization found that nearly 30% of the city's Filipino labor force works in healthcare, with more than half employed specifically in general medical and surgical hospitals.

Despite being the second-largest Asian American subgroup in the United States, Filipino cuisine has historically lacked widespread restaurant representation nationwide, a gap that began shifting with breakthroughs like Chicago's Kasama earning a Michelin star in 2022. Local interest has also been building through large-scale cultural events; Hoodline covered how Madison Avenue temporarily became Little Manila for the Philippine Independence Day celebration, and Filipino brands like Jollibee have drawn massive lines in the city as well.

Joining a Crowded East Village Food Scene

Hoy! is opening into an East Village and Lower East Side corridor that has become a hotbed for inventive, chef-driven Asian fast-casual concepts. Zaab Zaab co-owner Pei Shan Wei recently filed plans for a Lanna Café on First Avenue, and the ramen concept Kuro Neko is opening on East 10th Street, both signs of the neighborhood's growing appetite for regional Asian dining.

Because Hoy! plans to offer beer and wine, it will need to clear a standard regulatory step before opening: new food and beverage establishments in Manhattan must submit 30-day advance notice to local community boards, including Manhattan Community Board 3 in the East Village, before securing permits from the New York State Liquor Authority. That board typically reviews operating hours, seating capacity and outdoor dining plans before recommending approval, a process that has shaped the timelines of other recent East Village openings.

With a November opening planned, Hoy! is positioning itself as a low-key, high-accessibility entry point into Filipino cuisine for East Village diners who may have never tried lumpia or a longganisa burger before. Adraincem's stated goal of keeping the spot casual and affordable, paired with his high-profile cocktail-bar résumé, makes Hoy! one of the more closely watched restaurant debuts on the neighborhood's calendar this fall.