Leave your date speechless with an exceptional gastronomical experience at one of Seminyak’s top restaurants, Bikini. It’s safe to say that once you enter the dining room, you know the restaurant means business. The space feels like a New York loft style warehouse with a lively vibe, the staff are very attentive and the crowd is dressed to impress. With that in mind, the laid-back Bali vibes too are still prominent. Creative Culinary Director and Chef Jethro Vincent calls it “fun-dining, something you may get in a fine-dining restaurant but making it accessible in a fun, relaxed environment.” The creativity in the kitchen is what excited me the most, the smells and seeing the beautifully presented dishes as we walked in was an instant mood-boost and sparked the energy for our date before we even sat down!
To kick things off, our waiter recommended some crafty signature cocktails; The Kyoto Rainforest (150k), refreshingly balanced and a pleasure to drink, alongside the Hot Lips, Chocolate Kiss (160k), which was strong and exciting! A quick scan of the food menu and we were eager to order. Luckily there is a “feed me” option (530k) where the chef chooses up to 15 dishes from the menu and you get to sit back and enjoy. We opted for this. The menu is a combination of what’s in season, what’s on trend and what chef Vincent loves to cook. Diners are taken on a journey through modern Australian-Asian fusion dreamland and fed a range of mouthfuls to small and large plates paired with inventive cocktails.
We started off with some mouth-watering starters like the Pomme souffle, Sustainable yellow fin tuna tartlet, Smoked eel chawan mushi, Chicken satay and Babi guling empanadas. The noticeable stand-out was the Chicken Satay, crusted with crispy quinoa, served with ginger mayo that looked like it had come out of a wizard’s cauldron.
Moving on to the delicately arranged Small plates, we were presented with three. All of which encompassed an incredible level of execution and surprisingly working wonders together, even with such a contrast of flavours and textures. We enjoyed the Yuzu cured Hamachi, Smoked duck breast and Potato gnocchi. As for the Mains, we shared the tender Beef short rib and paired that with Coal roasted truffle cauliflower. Simply divine!
To end this luscious experience, we couldn’t skip dessert. In fact, we went all in and ordered two of the most fantastic desserts we’ve tried to date. The Smoked beef fat brownie with hazelnut dacquoise and cocoa nib gelato and the Local single origin chocolate with fermented banana and condensed milk snow. These two were just, WOW! A truly memorable Date for Two. We will be back!
