Seminyak is home to scores of restaurants, beach clubs, spas, art galleries and designer boutiques. It’s easily Bali’s most stylish and upscale beach area – world class resorts line the beach and many of the restaurants boast internationally acclaimed chefs that cook up an eclectic mix of cuisines. It also has a number of amazing beach clubs and entertainment venues like Ku De Ta. For me, it was almost like being back in New York – great food, cocktails and boutiques, only this time it was on the beach (and cheaper, of course)!
We mostly spent our time sipping drinks with our feet in the sand at Finns and Alila and taking in the fine dining experiences at a selection of the amazing restaurants, all worth talking about:
Mejekawi
Meaning sacred table, is one of the two restaurants at Ku De Ta. We decided to take a table on the outside corner and come for sunset, to enjoy a birds-eye view over Seminyak Beach. We enjoyed the 5-course tasting menu with a wine pairing, a very delightful experience.
Mamasan
One of the Sarong Groups creations and our favourite from the ones we tried. We were unable to get a reservation but took our chances and walked in, and managed to get a table in the lounge bar upstairs. The menu is rich in Asian flavour with the main influence being Thai cuisine. We really loved every dish, especially the shredded chicken & prawn salad and the kung pao lobster and chicken.
Merah Putih
When you walk into Merah Putih, you are greeted with European-inspired columns that are designed to funnel rain water and large palm trees, all under a two-story roof. The cuisine is Indonesian fusion, designed to experiment with spices and flavours from across the archipelago, and the dishes are perfect for sharing. We had the lobster dumplings, pork bao, snapper ceviche, fried chicken with aubergine and the lamb shank curry. All of it was great, but the snapper ceviche blew us away — the combination of the tomato & onion with the snapper topped with a lemon sorbet was phenomenal.
Kilo
A Latin-Japanese fusion kitchen. The restaurant has polished concrete floors and floor to ceiling glass windows, making it feel minimalistic but classy. We had the tuna tartar, the octopus and the pork tongue tacos. Overall, the food was okay, but not our favourite from this list.
La Laguna
A gypsy-inspired beach club that will transport you to a mystical land. As you walk along the cobbled path, you pass several vintage gypsy caravans. Once at the main restaurant, you’ll find alfresco seating scattered in the garden and along the lagoon. We decided to have brunch on the lagoon and enjoyed a view of the lagoon and the expansive shoreline.
La Lucciola
A lovely place on the beach, but the location is what made for a nice lunch. We had the crispy duck salad, courgette flowers and burrata salad, all of which were okay, but the atmosphere was worth it.
Despite the amount of time we spent swimming and indulging in exquisite meals, we managed to fit in one cultural excursion and made a morning visit to Tanah Lot.
Tanah Lot
Meaning “Land in the Sea”, is a temple that sits on a large rock in the ocean and is one of the seven sea temples along Bali’s coast. The temple was built by Dang Hyang Nirartha, a high priest from Java, who established the site to honor Dewa Baruna, the sea god.