Best Gay Bars & Clubs in Makati

Gay bars in Makati: the short version

By eleven on a Friday, Poblacion smells of sizzling sisig and spilt Red Horse, the jeepneys have thinned out on Kalayaan Avenue, and the corners around General Luna are packed with people deciding where to go next. This is Makati's nightlife quarter, a few blocks from the glass towers of the business district, and it is where the city's small gay scene lives. Be clear about the size of it: searching for a gay bar in Poblacion or "makati gay bar" turns up four queer venues, not a gay village. In 2026 that means one dedicated gay dance bar with drag (Halxyon Club), one bear bar that opened recently and already runs a full weekly programme (Hey Teddy), one tiny community karaoke bar (Pride Haven Vibes) and one mixed techno club where queer parties and drag land on some nights (Apotheka). Queer women have Amame, a members-only lounge on Chino Roces Avenue. For the big drag clubs, Metro Manila's queer nightlife is in Quezon City and Mandaluyong, a Grab ride away. And if you arrived here looking for Nectar: it was in Bonifacio Global City, not Makati, and it closed on 31 December 2024. Here is what Makati itself has.

Legal in one line: sex between men has never been a crime in the Philippines and the age of consent is equal, but there is no same-sex marriage or civil union, no joint adoption and no national anti-discrimination law; the SOGIE Equality Bill has been refiled in every Congress since 2017 without a Senate vote. Metro Manila is relaxed about gay visitors in practice. GayOut scores the Philippines 63/100.

Poblacion: where the queer bars are

Poblacion is Makati's old town, a tight grid of narrow streets between Makati Avenue, Kalayaan Avenue and the Pasig River. Over the past decade its hole-in-the-wall bars, food stalls and small clubs have made it the city's main night out, and the crowd is young, local and mixed. Things get going late: on weekends the clubs fill after midnight, and the four queer venues below are all within a ten-minute walk of each other.

Halxyon Club · 2F, A.M. Flores Building, General Luna St, corner Mariano St

Makati's dedicated gay bar: a second-floor bar and club on General Luna Street with drag performances, cocktails and a dance floor playing house, pop and dance until late. Reviews from mid-2026 talk about a friendly, safe-feeling room, good drag and drinks that do not cost much. It has also become a stage for queer theatre: in November 2026 it hosts an extended run of the play Last Dance: Hubo't Hubad on 8, 12, 21 and 28 November at 19:30, which tells you how the room is used on weeknights. It is small, so it fills up fast on Friday and Saturday after midnight. Hours are not published anywhere reliable, so check its social pages for the week's shows before you go.

Hey Teddy · G/F Virra 1 Building, Abaca Street, Poblacion

The newest addition and the one that changes the picture. Hey Teddy is a bear bar on Abaca Street, a quieter lane off the Burgos grid, and it runs a proper weekly calendar: happy hour with 30 percent off beer and mixers on Wednesday and Thursday from 18:00 to 21:00, Bear Lab socials with the Rogue MNL crew on alternate Thursdays, themed Fridays (tank-top night, sweatpants night, a go-go night billed as "Office Hours") paired with Drag Race Philippines watch parties, DJ or pop nights on Saturday (House of Britney, K-pop, iPod-era pop) and a Sunday sing-along, trivia or bingo with karaoke afterwards. Hours are Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday 18:00 to 02:00, Friday and Saturday 20:00 to 04:00, closed Monday and Tuesday. Entry is 18 and over with ID checked at the door; you do not have to be a bear, everyone is welcome, and the crowd is mostly men in their late twenties to forties. Table reservations need a ₱3,500 minimum spend, with an optional ₱2,000 confirmation fee that comes off the bill. Ticketed events sell through its online store; walk-ins are allowed if there is room. Details and the month's programme are on heyteddymanila.com.

Apotheka · G/F White Rabbit Building, 5672 Doña Carmen St, corner General Luna

Not a gay bar as such, but a two-room electronic-music club (the Main Room and the smaller Elbow Room) with themed nights, local DJs and drag on some nights, and the Poblacion club where the roving queer parties most often land. Nights start at 21:00 or 22:00 and run to about 04:00; the club is usually dark Sunday to Tuesday. Pre-sale tickets through its own online shop generally include a drink. Expect a young Gen Z crowd, a packed floor and door security. It is a two-minute walk from Halxyon, so the two make an easy pair. Note that some directories put Apotheka on Alfonso Street; that address belongs to a different bar.

Pride Haven Vibes · 4980 P. Guanzon St

A small, newer community bar with karaoke and shows, and very few reviews so far. Early visitors liked the cosy, welcoming room and the performers; one in June 2026 complained about extra charges for shows and dancing, so ask what you will pay before you sit down. Call ahead (0993 951 3705) to check it is open, because its hours are not published.

Amame · Chino Roces Avenue, San Lorenzo (members only)

Makati's one sapphic venue is not in Poblacion. Amame, founded in 2019, is a membership lounge for lesbian and queer women on Chino Roces Avenue, a clubby room where the bass runs deep and the night runs late, and it was still active in the 2026 Pride-weekend guides. Access is for members and their guests only; the joining process is explained on amame.space. Men looking for a bar should not turn up at the door.

Mixed and gay-friendly Poblacion

Much of Poblacion is easygoing enough that same-sex couples will not stand out. Elephant, the nomadic queer techno party founded in 2017 at the long-closed XX XX club, turned ten in 2026 and marked it with a ten-week Thursday residency from 11 June to 13 August at KINKI, a small club above the Tetsuo restaurant at 8483 Kalayaan Avenue, corner Matilde Street. Follow Elephant on Instagram, because the venue changes with every edition. Sulok Bar (Unit V402, Vine Building, Poblacion) hosted the queer monologue show 1 Gay Show and its after-party in September 2026; it is a small Filipino food-and-drinks bar rather than a gay bar, but it is clearly comfortable with a queer crowd. Barangay Bar, the indoor-outdoor bar at I'M Hotel on Makati Avenue, markets itself to LGBTQ+ guests and is a sensible pre-club drink. White Banana, the rooftop bar at 8459 Kalayaan Avenue, has drawn a mixed gay and straight crowd for years; check it is still running before you plan around it.

Burgos Street, Makati Avenue and Greenbelt

P. Burgos Street is not the gay strip. Burgos and the lanes off it, Badajos Street among them, are Makati's long-running girlie-bar strip, aimed at straight men. In these "entertainment clubs", hostesses ask you to buy them "lady drinks" that can cost several hundred pesos a glass, "bar fines" are charged to take a worker out, and bills get padded. A bar called LIPS on Badajos Street is sometimes listed as a gay venue; recent visitor reviews describe hostesses, women's drinks at around ₱400 and "takeout" fees, and we could not confirm that it runs as a gay or drag bar, so we do not list it. Fyre, a bar at 5021 P. Burgos that was once listed as gay, has gone quiet online and we cannot confirm it still trades. If you go in anywhere on Burgos, ask the price of every drink and check your bill before you sign it. Paying for sex is illegal in the Philippines.

Makati Avenue, around the hotels at the Poblacion end, has rooftop and hotel bars with a professional crowd; they are gay-friendly by default, not gay. The same goes for Greenbelt and the Ayala Center malls: plenty of polished cocktail bars and restaurants, and couples will not get a second look, but there is no dedicated gay bar there in 2026. Note that Burgos Circle, which people often confuse with Burgos Street, is a restaurant roundabout in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, and has no gay bar either.

Nectar and BGC: gone, but still Googled

Nectar, the drag-and-pop nightclub that was Metro Manila's best-known queer club, stood in The Fort Strip in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, next door to Makati, never in Makati itself. It opened in October 2016, was rebuilt as "Nectar 2.0" in 2019 and announced in November 2024 that it would close because the whole Fort Strip complex was being shut for redevelopment. Its last night was 31 December 2024. The owners said they would return in a new location and listings talked about late 2025, but as of November 2026 no new Nectar venue has opened. Many of its regulars and performers now turn up at Halxyon, at Rampa in Quezon City and at the roving parties. If you see a "Nectar Makati" listing, it is out of date.

Worth the ride: Metro Manila's big queer clubs

• Quezon City, 40 minutes or more in traffic: Rampa Drag Club, which moved in 2025 to 27-B Tomas Morato Avenue Extension, South Triangle, is the metro's flagship drag club with full production shows, Wednesday to Sunday from 22:00; Club Adonis for macho dancers and Krib+ on Timog Avenue are nearby.
• Mandaluyong, 20 minutes or so: Club Mwah!, 3/F The Venue Tower, 652 Boni Avenue, a show bar with performances Friday to Sunday that turns into a club afterwards.
• Parañaque, by the airport: Apollo, 717-B Roxas Boulevard, Baclaran, a large male-entertainment club with exotic dance and cabaret, listed as open nightly from 20:00.
• Party lines: Elephant (queer techno, since 2017) and the Jungle circuit party (since 2015) change venues across Manila; Jungle's 2026 dates were not announced at the time of writing. Check their social media.

When to go

Friday and Saturday are the only nights when every queer venue in Makati is open at once; Halxyon and Apotheka peak between midnight and 03:00. Hey Teddy is the weeknight option: Wednesday and Thursday happy hour is the easiest way to meet locals without a club crowd, and Sunday karaoke is quiet and friendly. Monday and Tuesday are dead across Poblacion. Pay days, the 15th and the 30th, make everything busier. Pride month is June, and Drag Race Philippines finale nights fill every bar with a screen.

Getting there and around at night

• Getting around: Poblacion is walkable once you are there. For everything else use Grab, or the motorbike-taxi apps Angkas, JoyRide and Move It, which beat EDSA traffic when you are on your own. The MRT-3 stops at Ayala and Guadalupe but does not run through the night.
• Going home late: book your Grab from inside the bar and step out when it arrives. Keep your phone in your pocket on crowded Poblacion lanes, where snatch theft happens.
• Money: carry pesos in small notes for covers and tips. Cards work in most Poblacion bars, and GCash is everywhere but needs a local number.
• Sleeping nearby: the hostels and small hotels on and off Makati Avenue put you within a walk of all four bars; see GayOut's gay-friendly hotels in Makati.

Apps and meeting people

Grindr is the busiest app in Makati and Poblacion by a distance, with Tinder and Bumble close behind for the professional crowd in the business district. Robberies set up through dating apps happen across Metro Manila: meet in a bar first, keep your drink in your hand and do not go to an unknown address on a first meeting. Bear and kink crowds organise through the Hey Teddy and Rogue MNL Instagram pages, and the techno crowd through Elephant's. For daytime connections, the Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce is based in Makati and runs networking events.

The law

The Philippines has never criminalised same-sex relations and the age of consent is equal, but it has no national anti-discrimination law: the SOGIE Equality Bill passed the House unanimously in 2017, died in the Senate, and has been refiled in every Congress since without a vote. Nine provinces and dozens of cities, including Quezon City, Manila, Cebu and Davao, have their own ordinances. The 1987 Family Code defines marriage as between a man and a woman, there is no civil union, same-sex couples cannot adopt jointly, and legal gender change has been barred since the 2007 Silverio ruling except for intersex people. The Supreme Court has moved incrementally: a 2023 code of conduct against SOGIE discrimination by lawyers, and a 2026 ruling that same-sex couples may co-own property. Quezon City issues Right to Care cards for medical decisions. Metro Manila Pride drew over 110,000 people in 2023, the largest in Southeast Asia, and bakla culture gives gay men high visibility, but the Catholic Church and Iglesia ni Cristo oppose every bill, and harassment is common outside the big cities. Makati, Poblacion in particular, is easy for visitors.

Health: testing, PrEP and emergencies

• Free HIV and STI testing, PrEP: LoveYourself runs walk-in community hubs across Metro Manila with free testing, counselling, PrEP enrolment and treatment; the hub list and each site's days are on loveyourself.ph/hubs. The hubs closest to Makati have been LoveYourself Uni on Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue in Pasay and Anglo on Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong, near MRT Shaw; confirm the current address and hours on the site before you go, because hubs move.
• City clinic: the Makati Social Hygiene Clinic on the 7th floor of City Hall Building 1 offers free, confidential HIV testing and PrEP referral on weekdays, 08:00 to 17:00 (phone 02 8870 1615).
• PEP: if a condom breaks, PEP must start within 72 hours; LoveYourself hubs and Makati Medical Center's emergency room on Amorsolo Street both handle it.
• Urgent care: Makati Medical Center (Amorsolo St, Legazpi Village) is the nearest private 24-hour emergency room to Poblacion and used to treating foreigners.

Safety and etiquette

• The joiner fee: many Philippine hotels charge a "joiner fee" for an unregistered guest, ask for ID at the lobby, or refuse visitors. Ask before you book, or choose from the hotels we list.
• Drinks and bills: at the queer bars this is a non-issue; on Burgos Street ask the price of everything first. Never leave a drink unattended anywhere.
• Street smarts: Poblacion is well policed and busy until dawn, but the side streets towards the river are dark; walk with company after 02:00 and use ride apps rather than hailing on the street.
• Public affection: holding hands in Poblacion is fine; elsewhere in Makati it draws stares rather than trouble. Drag and bakla culture are mainstream, and trans women are a visible part of every crowd.
• Age and ID: every bar checks ID at the door and the legal drinking age is 18. Carry a passport copy or a photo of it.

Local colour: what to drink and eat

Order a San Miguel Pale Pilsen or the stronger Red Horse, usually in big bottles to share. Filipino drinking is a group activity: friends pass round shots in a ritual called tagay, and nobody drinks without pulutan, the bar snacks. The classic is sisig, chopped pork with onion, chilli and calamansi served on a sizzling plate, and Poblacion's food stalls serve it until late. At the end of the night, a plate of tapsilog (cured beef, garlic rice and a fried egg) is the local cure for tomorrow.

Pride in Makati and Metro Manila

Metro Manila's Pride month is June. The Metro Manila Pride March and Festival returned after a two-year break on 27 June 2026 at Remedios Circle in Malate, Manila, under the theme "Bukas, Atin" ("Tomorrow is ours"): the festival opened at 10 a.m. and the march set off in the afternoon. The same day, Pride PH's Love Laban festival filled UP Diliman in Quezon City.

Makati has its own events too. The city launched "Spread the Love, Makati" on 27 July 2024 and repeated it on 21 and 22 June 2025, closing Makati Avenue between J.P. Rizal and Kalayaan Avenue in Poblacion for a street festival. We could not find a 2026 edition of the street festival; what did happen in 2026 was LoveYourself's Pride Night at Circuit Makati on 31 May, which ended early when a generator caught fire near the end of the programme (no one was hurt). The next Makati Pride is expected in June 2027; dates not announced yet.

A few words of Filipino

• Bakla, beki, bading: words for a gay man; beki and bading are the friendly, everyday ones.
• Jowa: boyfriend or partner. "May jowa ka ba?" means "Do you have a boyfriend?"
• Bongga: lavish, fabulous. Ang ganda mo!: "You're gorgeous!", the right thing to shout at a drag queen.
• Charot!: "Just kidding!"
• Magkano?: "How much?" Useful anywhere near Burgos Street.
• Isa pa: "One more." Salamat po: "Thank you" (polite).

At a glance

• Halxyon Club: gay bar and club, drag. 2F A.M. Flores Bldg, General Luna cnr Mariano, Poblacion. Hours on social pages; busy Fri and Sat after midnight.
• Hey Teddy: bear bar, themed nights, karaoke. G/F Virra 1 Bldg, Abaca St, Poblacion. Sun, Wed, Thu 18:00–02:00; Fri, Sat 20:00–04:00. 18+ with ID.
• Apotheka: mixed electronic club, queer parties and drag some nights. G/F White Rabbit Bldg, 5672 Doña Carmen St, Poblacion. Nights from 21:00 or 22:00 to 04:00, usually Wed–Sat.
• Pride Haven Vibes: small community bar, karaoke. 4980 P. Guanzon St, Poblacion. Call 0993 951 3705; ask about show charges first.
• Amame: members-only sapphic lounge. Chino Roces Ave, San Lorenzo. Join via amame.space.

Nearby alternatives

If the bars are quiet, Makati's daytime scene is the Ayala Triangle Gardens area after office hours, covered in our Makati cruising guide and on the gay cruising map. The full gay Makati guide lists hotels and organisations. Across the metro, Quezon City has the drag clubs, Malate in Manila has the old gay strip around Remedios Circle, and Mandaluyong has Club Mwah.

Frequently asked questions

Are there gay bars in Makati?

Yes, four, all in Poblacion: Halxyon Club on General Luna Street is the dedicated gay bar with drag, Hey Teddy on Abaca Street is a bear bar with themed nights, Pride Haven Vibes on P. Guanzon is a small community karaoke bar, and Apotheka on Doña Carmen Street is a mixed club with queer parties some nights. Check their social pages before you go, because the scene changes fast.

Where is the gay nightlife in Makati?

In Poblacion, the grid of streets around General Luna, Kalayaan Avenue, Abaca and P. Guanzon. Greenbelt and the business district are mixed and gay-friendly rather than gay. For big drag clubs, most people head to Quezon City or Mandaluyong.

Is Nectar in Makati still open?

No. Nectar was in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, not Makati, and it closed on 31 December 2024 when The Fort Strip shut. As of November 2026 it has not reopened anywhere.

Is Burgos Street in Makati a gay area?

No. P. Burgos Street and the lanes off it are Makati's old girlie-bar strip, aimed at straight men. If you end up there, ask the price of every drink and check your bill before you pay. Hey Teddy, one lane over on Abaca Street, is the gay bar in that part of Poblacion.

When was Pride in Metro Manila in 2026?

The Metro Manila Pride March and Festival was held on 27 June 2026 at Remedios Circle in Malate, Manila, under the theme "Bukas, Atin". In Makati, LoveYourself held its Pride Night 2026 at Circuit Makati on 31 May. The next Makati Pride is expected in June 2027; dates not announced yet.

Can I bring a date back to my hotel in Makati?

Often yes, but many Philippine hotels charge a "joiner fee" for an unregistered guest or ask for ID at the lobby, and some refuse visitors. Ask about the joiner policy before you book.

Keep this page honest

Bars in Poblacion open and close within months, and we would rather be told than be wrong. If Hey Teddy changes its hours, Halxyon moves, Nectar finally reopens or a new queer bar opens off Kalayaan Avenue, use the report link on any venue page or write to us through the Makati city page. Every venue listed here was checked against 2025 and 2026 sources in November 2026.