This restaurant came highly recommended on Tripadvisor and it looked like the kind of food I would like so I decided to try it. The reservations, especially for dinner, tends to get snapped up pretty early so do book in advance. The main chef here is Dutch and with him is 2 Indonesian chefs from Jakarta. The food is modern European but featuring ingredients from all over Indonesia (hence the name Locavore). This concept kinda reminds me of Narisawa, Tokyo, which uses ingredients sourced from all over Japan for European inspired cuisine, but of course at Locavore it is a lot more causal, since this is Bali.

There’s no ala carte menu here, and you choose either 5 or 7 course. The flexible thing about this place is that you can have different menus within the same table, while the inflexible thing about this place is they do not offer butter to go with their bread. Not even upon request.

Spinach (I think), fried to crackling texture. I love deep fried/ dehydrated crispy vegetables! In the background is their iced tea concoction, which is very nice and can’t be more perfect in the Balinese heat.

More canapés before the meal.

Bread is served warm (good) but only comes with the following dips which isn’t designed to be a crowd pleaser. Sometimes a simple olive oil or butter can be a better idea.

Sardines (Jimbaran, South Bali)
Pan-fried on pickled sour dough, cherry tomato varieties, roasted tomato juices, homemade kombucha, smoked sardine mayonaise, basil leaves, borage flowers

That’s a lot of flavours for such a small dish but it all worked out well and this was one of the best courses. Best sardine for sure.

Beef (Malang, Java)
Short ribs served raw, wasabi leaf mayonnaise, bawang goreng, pickled shallots, shaved radishes, herbed brioche crouton, melting beef lard

The beef tartare was below the pile of beautiful watermelon radish. I didn’t really like the brioche crouton. The tartare itself was fine.

Sweet Corn
Sweet corn soup, homemade honey vinegar, pickled baby sweet corn, mint leaves, kidney beans, Mike’s corn bread, corn roasted with brown butter

This one looked like corn overkill but it was actually good. The corn was really sweet, though I had no idea what’s the origin because it wasn’t stated on the menu.

Crayfish (Parang Tritis, Central Java)
Crayfish simply boiled, vinaigrette made from the head juices, pickled fennel, nasturtium leaves & flowers

This was my favourite dish. It was simply too flavourful to not love. The best part was the juices assembled in the head.

Lamb (Wonosobo, Central Java)
Eggplant glazed with local miso, seaweed from Lombok, neutral lamb jus, pommes fondant, eggplant puree

Lamb is free range and bought whole, so different cuts are available each day and served in different ways. I wasn’t very impressed with this one. Perhaps the cut served today wasn’t the best from the lamb.

Palate cleanser

Chocolate (Primo 80%)

Jellied bitter chocolate ganache, tarragon ice cream, homemade honeycomb, fresh seasonal pomelo, passionfruit curd, tarragon leaves, salty chocolate tuille

Cucumber & Mango

Mango panna cotta, pickled & compressed cucumber, white chocolate sorbet, burned harum manis mango, baby cucumber, cucamelon, mint leaves, sweet aloe vera, cucumber gel

Petite fours

The madeleines were served warm and were so good. I was stuffed beyond words by this point from my 7 course lunch.

Overall the meal was pleasant and up to expectations but definitely not on par with other restaurants around the world like Narisawa and the like but of course better than most normal restaurants. However, it does seem to have potential and rare to have in a place like Bali. The kitchen was open concept and I could see the Dutch chef working non-stop on the dishes. I do like how the place was kept small and personalized.

Locavore
Jalan Dewisita No. 10, Ubud, Bali 80571, Indonesia