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The Dining Edit
Impactful Restaurants & Cafés
Join us behind the scenes of Bali’s most thoughtful restaurants. From intimate kitchens to destination dining spaces, The Punch invites you to explore a more considered approach to food on the island.
Discover in-depth editorials, chef perspectives, and honest visuals that highlight the people, ingredients, and processes behind each menu. Each feature offers a closer look at restaurants offering a more conscious way of cooking, sourcing, and dining.
Founder Gustav Groenendijk's BAKED. Bali runs six cafés and its zero-waste Origin Zero roastery on kilometer-zero sourcing, fair wages for women farmers, and pesticide-free, biodiverse coffee.
Chefs Ray Adriansyah and Eelke Plasmeijer's Locavore NXT in Lodtunduh, an open-kitchen dining lab with a mushroom chamber, rooftop food forest, and overnight stays rooted in Balinese ingredients.
Chef Will Goldfarb's Room4Dessert on Ubud's edge grows into a Miyawaki forest village, blending botanical modernism, zero-waste cooking, and a homegrown academy into one living philosophy.
Motel Mexicola's Seminyak carnival of tacos and neon co-founded the Community Waste Project with Potato Head, turning nightly sorting and local sourcing into 12 years of sustainable celebration.
Founder Jude Manu Vincent's Bokashi Bali runs zero-plastic bulk shopping and a Japanese-inspired menu across two Canggu locations, composting farm waste into a wabi-sabi wellness experience.
Chef Val Gunawan on Kindling, his Cikini fine-dining home in a restored colonial house, stripping away marble and chandeliers for family recipes, heritage, and genuine warmth.
Founder Wayan Armina's Ulu Garden in Uluwatu blends live music, a rotating artist collective, and Balinese cuisine, trading uang bolong coins for food at its Sunday Kampung Rasa market.
Brothers Edis and Adis Dozovic's Avocado Factory in Bali builds from 3,000 kilograms of recycled plastic, sourcing fruit from backyard trees and composting waste back to the farms it came from.
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