What to eat in Bali

Let me be straight, because I've spent whole guides telling you to eat at warungs and pay a tenth of the resort price, and I mean it. The babi guling and the nasi campur are where Bali actually tastes like itself, and nothing on a six-course set menu will beat a plate eaten where the rice was grown. So this is the exception, not the rule, and I want you to hold it that way.

That said — once, for the right evening, the Kamandalu staircase dinner is worth it. It's a candlelit table set into the terraced valley as the light goes, and the whole appeal is the hour, not just the food: the fireflies start, the heat finally drops, and the valley does that thing where the green goes to ink. As a photographer I'll admit the staging is built for it, and that's fine — some evenings you put the camera down and just sit in it.

It runs about 5,480,200 IDR, which is roughly USD 340 — proper splurge money, and far more than a week of warung dinners. So save it for the night that's meant to mean something: the anniversary, the last evening, the celebration you came for. Eat at the family kitchens the other six nights. This one buys you the view and the quiet, and on the right occasion that's a fair trade.