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‘Dishes we’ve never seen before’: chefs take Indonesia’s fusion cuisine to the next level with a fusion of recipes and cooking styles from across the archipelago
- Modern Indonesian cuisine blends ingredients and cooking styles from around the vast country, or puts a local spin on Western dishes, as a tour of Bali reveals
- Think durian crème brûlée, fish porridge adapted into a risotto, or pandan ice panna cotta. Yet the food is a hard sell to tradition-bound locals and tourists
Reading Time:6 minutes
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Indonesian cuisine is, by definition, a product of cultural fusion.
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When Arab ships first made landfall on the archipelago in the 8th century, they brought with them the recipe for sate (satay) – seasoned, skewered meat served with rich, tangy sauces.
Chinese traders arriving in the 15th century introduced nasi goreng – Indonesia’s ubiquitous fried rice – and soto, a broth of meat and vegetables.
And after the Dutch colonised the archipelago in the 16th century, they added new foods again, such as sosis Solo – sausage processed with garlic, pepper and nutmeg that is named after the Javanese city where it was created.
Chefs are taking inspiration – be they ingredients, recipes or cooking styles – from other parts of Indonesia to create a fusion of many Indonesian cuisines
Today, Indonesian cuisine is fusing once again, though this time different elements within itself.
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“In the second half of the last century, chefs merged Indonesian food with Western and Asian and called it modern Indonesian cuisine,” says Kevindra Soemantri, a restaurant critic, author and indigenous-food advocate in Jakarta, who hosted the Indonesian episode of the Netflix Street Food series.
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