Nusantara is a restaurant I decided we should visit after my extensive research about local food in Ubud. There are about a billion restaurant offerings in this small town, and it’s really hard to just pick a few when you are only staying there for a few days. Nusantara is the decidedly more low-key restaurant headed up by the folks at Locavore – a restaurant that has been at the top of most “best-of” Indonesia and Asian lists for a long time. I decided against going to Locavore because we were already going to be doing a fancy Michelin starred dinner in Singapore on this trip, and also because they are working on a brand new concept, the menu recycling old “best of” dishes, which I’m sure are awesome, but nothing new or fresh.

Nusantara, on the other hand, is super fresh, focused on local ingredients, as well as local dishes from throughout the Indonesian archipelago; Nusantara means archipelago, after all. Everything at Nusantara was served family style, and we were happy to order their set menu. While we were already familiar with some of the items in the menu, we weren’t confident to simply order a bunch of things we thought might be ok.

The space at Nusantara is minimalistic in design, but has a cool giant map of Indonesia on the wall. The service is attentive and kind, and they were extremely concerned about the level of spice in the food. I am guessing a lot of us westerners complain about the level of spice in the food? We wanted to have an authentic experience, so we said “bring it on!” Really, though, most of the food, while spicy, was not too extreme, although there were a few dishes that really packed a punch.

The drinks at Nusantara are actually pieces of art. The colors of the cocktails and the garnishes were some of the most beautiful I’ve seen.

Before you got deep into the family style set menu, they served a large platter of snacks, which were all unique and delicious. These included salted fish, deep fried tapioca (a favorite), tempe, marinated pineapples (another favorite), fried tofu, cemcem leaves, and fried chicken eggs, along with a few different types of crackers. This was a super fun way to start off the evening and sample a lot of different delicious Indonesian food items.

For the rest of the meal, we had absolutely tons of food served to us. We started with a soup that was served to us in coconut shells. It might’ve been my favorite dish of the night – it was slightly sweet and super flavorful.

There were several seafood based dishes, including baby squid and clams and deep fried soft shell crab. the pork belly was a highlight, as they do pork extremely well in Bali in general, and there was braised duck as well. All this was served with a few “sambal” or sauces as well as Balinese rice. It was a ton of food, and some of it was truly very spicy, so we were a bit sweaty at the end of the meal, but it was all incredibly flavorful and delicious.

We were then served a palate cleanser of a type of juice drink that I cannot recall what it is. Suffice to say that it calmed down the screaming taste buds in our mouths to prep us for dessert! It also looked gorgeous, like every other drink we had! There is a LOT of attention to detail paid here at Nusantara.

For dessert, we were served a rice flour porridge with coconut milk. There were these gooey, gelatinous, chewy bits that were incredibly delicious, and the slight sweetness of the coconut milk and palm sugar was a nice dessert to end the evening.

Nusantara benefits from Locavore’s supply chain, meaning that they get super fresh and super high quality ingredients for their food. Here, you can sample a huge range of traditional dishes from around the Indonesian archipelago, and it’s definitely worth a visit for that reason alone. The prices here are also quite reasonable as well, with the set menu costing around $30 per person. Definitely book ahead, and don’t miss this delicious spot in Ubud!