Tiger Palm, Hujan Locale: Will Meyrick’s Bali is streets ahead

There seems to be no stopping former Sydney restaurateur Will Meyrick in his mission to fire up the Bali food scene.

Chef Will Meyrick goes food shopping.

There seems to be no stopping former Sydney-based chef and restaurateur Will Meyrick in his mission to fire up the Bali culinary scene. The award-winning entrepreneur has had resounding success with Sarong, which he opened at Kerobokan in 2008, and his 2011 follow-up Mamasan, with its northern Asia culinary focus and street art-influenced interiors plus a groovy upstairs cocktail club, which serves a grazing menu of dumplings and potstickers and the inventive likes of espresso ginger martinis and lapsang souchong tea bellinis.

His latest offering, Tiger Palm, was launched last November in a street-front space at Seminyak Village on shop-filled Jalan Kayu Jati street and with encouragingly easy opening hours from 8am to 2am.

The long menu card starts with “dim sum and bites” and proceeds to curries, braises, tandoori, roasts, stir fries and “crispy things”, a category that includes the sweet-sour flavours of Peranakan fish with ginger flowers, chilli, tomato and tamarind. This dish edges the Malaysian “signatures” section, the star of which is a deeply flavoured nyonya laksa that would challenge any to be found in the dish’s heartland of George Town, Penang.

It’s a beautifully crafted menu, with all ingredients listed, so it seems like an excursion around Southeast Asia’s best street food, with a focus on Malaysia’s three ethnic groups, which is what Meyrick, who also presents a show on the Asian Food Channel, says is precisely what he had in mind.

The low-lit venue accommodates 120, including at outdoor sit-up bar tables, where drinks include the zesty likes of Super Magic Man, Mata Hari, the entertaining spectacle that is the Fairy Floss martini and, perhaps for a shopping-lag break, a yummy green tea mint latte. Many tipples have been inspired by medicinal jamu potions traditionally dispensed by village healers and claimed to have magical properties. My order comes with a Galian Montok jamu information card about developing bigger breasts, which is such the polar opposite of my body-image concerns that I almost dare not raise the glass.

Apparently the fitout has been inspired by the old Palm Court of the venerable Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang, but the feel is less planter style than contemporary Asian chic, with black-uniformed waitstaff, plain timber floors and ceiling, bright blue banquettes, bowls of white orchids and a dramatic wall installation of big glass jars, inside which nestle, like laboratory specimens, sepia photographs of old Malaya.

Meantime, up in the hills of Ubud, Meyrick opened Hujan Locale early last year, with Australian chef Tim Bartholomew at the stoves. Set in the relatively quiet backstreet of Jalan Sri Wedari off Ubud’s main drag, the two-storey space — all concertina windows, pale timbers, rattan chairs, milky glass drop lights and ceiling fans — occupies a former shop in front of a family temple compound. The vibe is genteel, almost colonial, sort of Saigon meets Surabaya, with the lovely addition of birdsong and breezes and a clear emphasis on produce from the restaurant’s garden and farm. Even cocktails are mixed and muddled with health-giving vegetables — a cucumber martini, perhaps, or a beetroot margarita.

Hujan means rain, and therefore a prosperous harvest, and the servings, too, are bountiful and crunchy with herby goodness. Downstairs, with an open kitchen and pineapple motifs on the walls, is fun for people-watching but I suggest an upstairs perch for the best atmosphere. A flexible menu from noon to 11pm includes gluten-free dishes and is madly tasty, from starter morsels of crispy squid with chilli jam, ginger flower and lemongrass to main events such as a richly complex Acehnese sea bass curry inspired by recipes from the island of Sumatra and tweaked with sour apple sauce.

A green papaya salad with carrot, dried shrimp and tomato and chilli lime dressing is the best accompaniment to just about everything except, it must be admitted, desserts, including the beheaded coconut that arrives filled with pineapple granita, yoghurt ice cream and candied coconut strips and takes up half the table.

The seemingly indefatigable Meyrick, who has an Indonesian wife and calls Bali home, definitely is on to something. He has opened Mamasan spin-offs in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong plus the popular E & O in Jakarta. The formula seems to work across disparate cities and regional culinary influences, which is exactly what a restaurateur known as the Asian street-food chef would have envisaged.

• willmeyrick.com

• tigerpalmbali.com

• hujanlocale.com

THE FAB FOUR: BALI RESORT RESTAURANTS

The Restaurant, Alila, Seminyak

THE RESTAURANT, ALILA, SEMINYAK

It’s rare to find an all-day restaurant that can consistently deliver across three meals, but this indoor-outdoor bistro, with terrific sea views, covers a noodle bar, rotisserie, grill, bakery, curry station and supplies of “something to slurp” (soups). Go buffet or a la carte and, if you’re a fan of seafood, turn straight to the menu section dubbed “hauled this morning in Jimbaran” for fresh fish and prawns, seasoned to order, including soy-ginger sauce or Indonesian spices. Desserts include unlikely combinations like pancakes with chocolate, cheddar cheese and sesame seeds; or perhaps a passionfruit panna cotta or ice creams in flavours such as lime and coconut. Dinners for couples on the beach, surrounded by lanterns, are also an option at this affordable beachside bolthole, which has a super-smart design, cooled by flourishing vertical gardens.

More: alilahotels.com.

Kubu, Ritz Carlton Mandapa

KUBU, RITZ-CARLTON MANDAPA RESERVE, UBUD

Romantically lit for dinners a deux, the best seats in the house at Kubu are those in its nine rattan pods, which look rather like fish traps, set beside the swirling Ayung River. There are tasting menus of six or eight courses, with a focus on sunny Mediterranean flavours, so expect the likes of mascarpone and eggplant ravioli with cod, onion cream and smoked ricotta. Candles flicker and softly spoken staff drift around in the near-darkness, somehow navigating past wooden supports that create the look of a secretive bamboo grove. It really is quite extraordinary and very different to this brilliantly conceived new resort’s multi-tiered Sawah Terrace all-day concept, where the chef’s market garden is almost at your elbow and there are long green views across an estate of pool villas nestled in rice fields.

More: mandapa.com.

Sundara restaurant, Four Seasons Resort, Jimbaran Bay

SUNDARA, FOUR SEASONS, JIMBARAN

Sundara supper club, cocktail lounge and sunset-viewing mecca opened several years ago and heralded a style revival for this well-established resort. Watching that orange orb sink into the horizon is an altogether quieter prospect at Sundara than, say, Ku De Ta or Potato Head, but tranquil does not mean staid. There’s a fire pit, foamy cocktails (including arguably the island’s best lychee martinis), sink-into seating, lantern lighting and, beyond the clubby drinking area, the open-sided restaurant, which serves dinner from 5pm (preceded by lighter fare from 11.30am). Sundara spreads across a series of high-roofed Balinese pavilions, lily-dotted ponds, stone steps and courtyards and there’s even a 57m infinity pool edged with canopied daybed seating (or night-lounges, more correctly, as the evening lengthens).

More: sundarabali.com; fourseasons.com.

Movida bar, Katamama.

MOVIDA, KATAMAMA, SEMINYAK

This new and funky so-called lifestyle hotel with rustic brickwork and a mid-century vibe is next to the crazy-busy Potato Head beach club, so expect quite a “scene” around the precinct. But sidle past the hipsters to Frank Camorra’s MoVida, his first international outpost, and well situated at the heart of the property. It’s a breezy all-day diner and lounge, with additional retro Hawaiian cane furniture in a beach-facing nook, and a comprehensive bar menu is offered for snacks and signature cocktails. There are timber-framed rattan ceilings, rice-paper lanterns and exposed brickwork; young staff glide about in loose indigo pants and tangerine T-shirts. Camorra’s most popular share plates are highlighted on the menu and there are yummy local standouts, such as Lombok softshell crab with seaweed aioli on a squid-ink bun.

More: katamama.com.