Locavore is one of the restaurants we were excited to try on our Indonesia trip. This post gives all the details about our experience at this Bali restaurant.
I didn’t know what to expect from Locavore. I knew it was an award-winning restaurant, easily found through “best restaurants in Indonesia” searches. I had glanced at the menu and photos. What we enjoyed was a creative dining experience that introduced us to the beautiful ingredients of Indonesia!
Locavore – Modern Cuisine, Local Produce
Highly rated in Asia (most recently number 22 in Asia’s Best Restaurants of 2019) and one of the most noteworthy restaurants in Indonesia, Locavore is known for its European cooking style with local Indonesian ingredients. Open since 2013, this restaurant is for traveling foodies wanting to experience fine dining in Bali.
You know I have a thing for local eating, and in a place like Bali, where there seems to be a struggle in keeping up with environmentally friendly practices, Locavore is an example of sustainability. Sourcing local produce and ethically raised animals, decreasing waste by using the whole animal, and re-purposing waste by composting or saving waste to feed pigs are some of the practices the restaurant upholds. Over 95% of Locavore’s ingredients are from Indonesia, which says a lot about their creativity and their passion for introducing the country’s bounty to guests. I think these practices and values enhance Locavore’s noteworthiness, and I’m not alone in my thinking. Locavore won the Sustainable Restaurant Award from Asia’s Best 50 Restaurants this year.
Locavore is led by Chefs Eelke Plasmeijer and Ray Adriansyah and managed by Adi Karmayasa. Both chefs trained in different countries (Eelke is Dutch and Ray is Indonesian) before meeting each other and Adi while working at a hotel in Ubud.
Our Dinner at Locavore
After about a 10-minute walk from our hotel near the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, we arrived at Locavore, located in the central part of Ubud. We were greeted by the hostess who immediately led us to our table. The restaurant is spacious with a slightly raised seating level on one side and an open kitchen on the other. Locavore is thoughtfully decorated with a slate, wood, and green color palette.
The team first presented this colorful display of edible flowers. It’s a canang sari, a Balinese Hindu offering that can be seen outside businesses and homes daily. With a palm leaf tray, the offering symbolizes gratitude. It’s ready to eat after a spray of vinaigrette and a dash of salt. After clearing the dish, we found a booklet with a welcome message and our menu options.
We decided on the nine-course dinner, and Will got the locavore menu while I got the herbivore (vegetarian) menu. We decided against drink pairings because it seemed like a lot of food, but we did get a round of cocktails.
Our dinner was full of surprises. Before the dinner began, we had six snack courses! These, pictured below, were some of my favorite parts of the meal. One of the snacks imitated a monkey’s way of eating. We took the lemongrass stalk, stuck it into a container of honey and then stuck it into another container of a nut mixture.
There was also a fried snack near the end of the savory dishes, a palette cleanser, and an additional dessert at the end.
Here are the dishes from the herbivore menu:
(the first four dishes are pictured below)
- Savoury Citrus – five different citrus fruits, cashew coriander creme, spiced nuts, citrus oil, chili soy sauce, citrus peel powder
- Eggplant in its element – baby eggplant, pickled in ginger torch vinegar, smoked eggplant creme, aromatics
- Bangkuang Loves Passion Fruit – oven-roasted jicama, passion fruit emulsion, turmeric pickled jicama, peanut miso creme, tempered spices
- Everything Pumpkin – the whole pumpkin, confit in cacao nib oil, charred pumpkin candlenut creme, spiced cacao nib crumble, pickled pumpkin, salted pumpkin seed powder
- Singkong 17 – cassava garlic mousseline, 17 tasty condiments
- Banana Blossom 2.0 – battered banana blossom, white mole sauce, lacto fermented garlic, garlic flowers
- Bubur Beda – three-grain porridge, rawon broth, black rice cracker, soy pickled wood ear mushrooms, button mushrooms, shiitake rawon powder
- So Much More Than Just Nutmeg – nutmeg fruit gelato, white chocolate chantilly, warm chocolate foam, kombucha pickled salak, cacao nib nougatine
- Everything Palm Tree – palm sugar caramel gelato, tamarind jam, kaffir lime pickled palm heart, kolang kaling tamarind candy, palm sugar meringue
Here are the dishes from the locavore menu:
(the first four dishes are pictured below)
- Good Old Squid Noodles… – confit squid, young coconut, compressed cucumber, salted lime kosho, coconut tiger milk, culantro oil, scallop boshi
- Edi Brokoli (Just Google Him) – marinated broccoli stems, peanut miso, broccoli ham puree, seaweed, cassava ham vichyssoise, left-over broccoli powder
- Flower Power – lots of marigold flowers, young white corn rice, mud crab, nixtamalized corn miso veloute, toasted corn husk oil
- Into the Sawah (aka everything that lives, grows and swims in and around the Ubud rice fields) – heritage galuh rice porridge, 64 degrees duck egg yok, snails, frog leg abon, fern tips, wildflowers
- Black is the New Orange – carrot slow roasted in smoked beef fat, kecap glaze, carrot reduction, spiced carrot puree, smoked lacto-fermented carrot powder
- Who Doesn’t Like Fancy French Sauce?! – snapper, confit in vanilla cacao butter, black orange sauce, “maltaise”, burned tangerine, temu kunci
- Ayam Hitam – Jon’s chicken, grilled with black garlic, garlic confit puree, black garlic kecap emulsion, pickled solo garlic, green garlic oil, crispy chicken skin cracker
- The Real White Coffee (a.k.a. ask Ivan Falls)… – white coffee licorice gelato, mulberries in kombucha syrup, palm nectar licorice syrup, coffee crumble
- Everything Palm Tree – palm sugar caramel gelato, tamarind jam, kaffir lime pickled palm heart, kolang kaling tamarind candy, palm sugar meringue
The last dish of our dinner was a clever representation of the Indonesian game congklak with treats in every spot. As you may recognize from the vessel, congklak is a version of mancala, a popular strategy board game using stones or beans.
What I Thought About Locavore
Many of the dishes included flavors that were bright and strong. The menu featured several emulsions and fermented ingredients.
With the off-menu surprise dishes, our nine-course menus turned into 19 courses, which was a lot of food! As you can see, most of the courses were small, so we weren’t too uncomfortable by the end of the meal. Nearly three hours later, jet lag was more of the problem than the amount of food since we were trying not to fall asleep at the table!
Dining at Locavore was delightful because it included so many of the things I enjoy in a dining experience. The service was attentive, informative, and collaborative. The presentation lets your eyes eat first and easily resulted in a “wow” as the dish hits the table. The creativity and flavors played well together in a beautifully executed dish.
Would I return? Yes. Locavore’s menu is seasonal and the team is constantly trying new things, so it would be a new adventure. If not Locavore, I would definitely explore some of their other establishments.
Details for Your Visit
Locavore is nontraditional Indonesian food yet still every bit Indonesian. You might not see the typical nasi or mie goreng here, but Indonesian produce and meats are presented and celebrated in every dish. It’s an inspiring way to think about cuisine.
Budget-wise, it can be an investment, especially if you compare it to the price of a typical meal in Bali. Since you can easily find meals for under $5 USD, this meal could be a week’s worth of meals on your trip. Compared to other fine dining meals, it’s on par for cost, and you should always consider how price aligns with the quality of ingredients.
We made a reservation about three months before our visit, though you should be able to get a lunch or dinner reservation a few weeks before if your day and time are flexible. If I were to go back to Locavore, I’d aim for an earlier dinner time or try it for lunch. We were about one day into our trip, and with our 7 pm dinner reservation, we were fighting to stay awake by the end of the meal. Our nine-course dinner took about three hours.
I preferred the locavore menu to the herbivore menu, and I’d recommend the six-course unless you can eat more. I’d also recommend a drink pairing as part of the experience since those are also beautifully prepared.
- Ambiance: Open, spacious, green
- Attire: Casual
- Noise Level: Average
- Reservation: Recommended
- Groups: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Meal: lunch or dinner times, locavore or herbivore (vegetarian), 6 or 9-course prix fixe menus, optional drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) pairing
- Pricing:
- Locavore menu
- 6 dishes: Rp 895 ($63.42 USD) plus Rp 500 ($35.43 USD) drink pairing
- 9 dishes: Rp 1195 ($84.67 USD) plus Rp 650 ($46.06 USD) drink pairing
- Herbivore menu
- 6 dishes: Rp 795 ($56.33 USD) plus Rp 500 ($35.43 USD) drink pairing
- 9 dishes: Rp 1095 ($77.59 USD) plus Rp 650 ($46.06 USD) drink pairing
- Locavore menu
Locavore
Jl. Dewisita No.10, Banjar Padang, Tegal, Kabupaten Gianyar, Bali 80571, Indonesia
Hours: Monday through Saturday 11 am to 11 pm
https://www.locavore.co.id/
You could also check out the other establishments by the Locavore team:
- Nusantara by Locavore – opened in 2017, this restaurant features Indonesian dishes
- Night Rooster – a 40-seat bar offering fun cocktails
- Locavore To Go – Locavore’s little sister serves more casual dishes like sandwiches
- Local Parts – their cruelty-free butcher shop
P.S. Curious about more travel eats? See more restaurants here!
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