CASCADES AT THE VICEROY: Indonesia's Best Restaurant

We downloaded this threesixty: Bali travel guide app for iphone, which lists down the premiere luxury destinations in Bali, and this is how we learned about Cascades Restaurant at the Viceroy.

photo from viceroybali.com

When we arrived in Bali, we asked our guide if he knows how far the Viceroy is from Kamandalu Resort (read about our accommodation in Bali here).  He didn't know where the Viceroy is so he asked if we have the number and offered to call the resort.  As it turns out, the Viceroy is only a hundred or so meters away from where we're staying!  Hooray!  We decided we MUST spend one night at the Viceroy for dinner.

The Viceroy

photos from viceroybali.com

The Viceroy is a member of the select Small Luxury Hotels of the World, and Great Hotels of the World.  It has only 25 villas, each with its own private swimming pool.  According to the brochure we got from the resort, the cheapest Garden Villa costs $660++ per night, while the biggest Viceroy Villa (at 450 square meters) costs $1650++ per night (ouch).  

photos from viceroybali.com

Cascades

The restaurant is hailed as one of the world's most beautiful romantic dining locations.  It was awarded Best Indonesia's Restaurant in 2007 by American Express and Indonesia Tatler.  Every year since then, they've been getting awards from Indonesian Tatler for being part of the Best Restaurants List.

They also received the Award of Excellence for 2007 and 2008 from Wine Spectator USA for their extensive list of rare wines from around the world.  We are not wine drinkers but when they handed us the wine list, we went "Whoa.  Encyclopedia?"  

This award-winning fine dining restaurant is said to be one of the finest restaurants in Southeast Asia.  And just this June, they received two more awards from Confrérie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs.

The resort has a helipad and we were told that some diners even arrive at the resort in a chopper.  Jealousy.

Our Experience

Since the Viceroy is not too far from our resort, we decided we'll just walk going there.  But the hotel peeps were kind enough to offer the resort car and chauffeur.  They even called Cascades to make sure they have seats for us, as we didn't make any reservations.  Our resort driver dropped us off and said we can just ask the Viceroy to call Kamandalu as soon as we're ready to be picked up after our dinner.

There weren't a lot of diners when we got there --just a couple on one table, two guy friends on another table, and 2 more Chanel-toting Japanese girls on the other.  They all finished eating ahead of us, that's why we were able to take photos of the place without feeling constrained.

We were given this chicken and avocado dish, compliments of the chef.

We had a few starters (most priced a little less that 100,000 rupiah) before moving on to the main event.  Their Main Entrees are priced at 280,000-480,000 rupiahs.  They also offer the six-course Chef's Degustation Menu at around 800,000/1.6M rupiahs (we didn't bother to ask why they have 2 prices for that).

While dining, the staff were so kind to check on us every once in a while, and we eventually got to chat with them.  After we had our meal, they even showed us around and told us more about the place.  They led us to the Viceroy Bar, which has exquisite lacquered countertops overlooking the Petanu river gorge. 

Then, they offered to take a photo of us together!

We invited them to join us for the next shot.

One of them even surprised us with Irish coffee shots, for free!!  His name is Agung and his roommate for 7 years is a Filipino from Batangas.  he said he loves Adobo and his favorite song is Anak by Freddie Aguilar. Hehe.

It's past eleven in the evening when we decided to call it a night.

Agung accompanied us to the lobby where we were supposed to ask the receptionist to call Kamandalu to have someone pick us up, but Agung said "No, it's okay, our Lamborghini will take you back to your resort!"

Okay, we made him pose like that.  He asked what it means and we said that's what Filipinos do if we want to look kyyyoooot. Haha.