Nusantara, Bali: a true taste of Indonesia brought to you by the team behind Locavore
- Indigenous ingredients and dishes are what bring tourists and locals alike to this purveyor of authentic cuisine
- The chef, I Putu Dodik Sumarjana, worked his way up at Locavore, one of Asia’s best restaurants (right)
What’s cooking here? Classic dishes from around Indonesia made with indigenous ingredients. Everything is cooked with national pride, and served in a cosy setting replete with Batik prints and rattan partitions.
Who’s behind the restaurant? Many foodies travelling to Bali head for Locavore, in Ubud, No 42 on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Opened in 2013, Locavore is said to be the first on the island to use exclusively Indonesian ingredients (with the exception of baking powder) to produce international cuisine.
In 2016, while looking for a space to house LocaLAB, the group’s R&D arm, chef-owners Eelke Plasmeijer and Ray Adriansyah chanced upon a space that was too large for their purpose but a good fit for a restaurant that would serve their style of local food. And they already employed just the guy to run it. Thus, Nusantara, which means “archipelago” in Bahasa Indonesian, was born.
Is this another “authentic” restaurant showcasing local food to foreigners? It’s much more than that. Nusantara is helmed by a 26-year-old chef from Banjar Pengaji, in Penyangan, Bali. I Putu Dodik Sumarjana worked his way up as part of the kitchen crew at Locavore. It was the Indonesian fare that Putu cooked for staff lunches that made him the obvious choice for head chef at Nusantara.
His passion for discovering regional recipes grew with the 2016 launch of the Locavore Jalan Jalan project, in which small teams travelled from Ubud across Indonesia to source ingredients, learn new dishes and expand their culinary vocabulary.
