Home by Chef Wayan is located near Canguu.
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I was more than a little excited last year when Hardie Grant released Paon, a mouth-wateringly good cookbook by Balinese chef Wayan Kresna Yasa and Balinese-Australia writer Tjok Maya Kerthyasa. Based for a lot of my time in Bali, this was to be my kitchen Koran, the go-to for cooking all my favourite Balinese dishes.
Imagine my surprise then when chef Wayan himself opened a casual eatery - Home by Chef Wayan - on a family plot in Pererenan, near Canggu - just at the end of my street, a three-minute walk from my villa. Suddenly, all that cooking didn't seem so important when I could be supping on the very recipes cooked by the man himself.
You wouldn't look twice driving past Home, such is its simplicity.
Ten or so wooden tables sit under a cheap open-air metal building, the whir of ceiling fans competing with the sound of motorbikes on the busy road. A couple of bookshelf copies of Paon are the only nod to Wayan's celebrity. A few indoor plants pretty the place up.
This everyman approach, and Wayan's exceptional food, is the appeal.
The lauded chef has headed-up some of Bali's best Indonesian-Balinese restaurants including the well-loved Kaum at Potato Head in Seminyak. Opening his own restaurant was the pared-down next step to owning his culinary prowess.
Wayan's Indonesian-Balinese dishes, plated to five-star standard, are some of the island's most affordable best. Chicken noodle soup (soto ayam) is a nourishingly rich coconut cream broth topped with bean sprouts, boiled egg and fried garlic ($7). The duck (bebek se'i), hand-smoked in rice harvest hay and served with shallot confit and creamy sweet potato, comes a close second ($13).
Wayan has plans for a renovation in 2024. "Nothing too big," he assures me, "just a few extra tables and a freshen up". Simplicity at its culinary best.
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