Five Stylish Eateries In Jakarta, Indonesia, For Food Lovers

1. Bandar Djakarta, Ancol

Are you a seafood lover? Although you may have been to many seafood restaurants in your own country, when in Jakarta you should go to Bandar Djakarta, a unique seafood restaurant located at Jakarta Bay, inside Jakarta’s largest resort, Ancol Dreamland Park, or Taman Impian Jaya Ancol in Indonesian. There is an amusement park named Dunia Fantasi, restaurants, and hotels within this resort.

What is so special about this restaurant? Well, there are several Bandar Djakarta restaurants in the city, but this one is located by the sea, so in here you can eat while enjoying an ocean view. However, there is something more about this restaurant. This is the only restaurant, or one of few restaurants where customers need to pick live fish, lobsters, shrimps, squids, crabs or clams, and then let the chef cook them the way you like!

One of the food specialties is the sweet and spicy Udang Super Bakar Madu Pedas, or Grilled Spicy Jumbo Shrimp With Honey. It costs 21,000 IDR (1.59 USD) per ounce and for such weight you get about 2 or 3 shrimps. It’s a good price for shrimp, isn’t it?

Come at around 5 pm to enjoy the sunset and, since there is a small pier in the area, after your meal, why not have a 30-minute ride around the bay? It’s 50,000 IDR (3.79 USD) for the ride.

2. Salt Grill by Luke Mangan

Do you love eating steak and don’t really know where to go for it in Jakarta? There are many restaurants serving steak in this city, but none offers the same food quality and dining experience you get at Salt Grill by Luke Mangan.

Located at the 46th floor of The Plaza building (you can enter this restaurant from Plaza Indonesia Mall), not only is this one of the best steak restaurants in the city, but it’s also one of the tallest restaurants located in the heart of Jakarta. You can see Jakarta from above, as well as Jakarta’s iconic Monumen Selamat Datang (The Welcome Monument), which is 2 statues of a young man and woman carrying a torch welcoming Jakarta’s visitors.

Steaks are soft and juicy, which is perfect to be accompanied with wine. From beef tenderloin to tuna and barramundi steaks, they are cooked with different types of spice and sauce. I love everything they have on the menu, but their gindara steak with celeriac purée is superb. Gindara is a type of cod fish, but fattier, and it tastes very fresh when cooked with a type of celery sauce called celeriac purée.

3. Hyde

Do you love chocolate? There are many eateries in Jakarta offering chocolate desserts, but nothing is like the 2 desserts served at a restaurant named Hyde, located on Jalan Kemang. Despite its location on a busy street, this restaurant is serene because the dining area is located in the middle of a garden, where you can see all the greeneries from the window.

This restaurant serves Western foods such as Italian prawn spaghetti pesto (they use fresh basil sauce to cook with) and the British fish and chips, however, many do not miss the 2 highlights of this restaurant, Choco Soil and Choco Bomb. You will be surprised to find that these desserts are really as unique as their names.

How would you feel if you ordered a dessert and it turned out that you are only given soil, together with living worms inside it? Wait! Before you get furious, please be informed that the dark substance you may think is soil is actually healthy dark chocolate biscuit! The worms? Well no fret, as worms can’t live inside chocolate! They are actually made from several pieces of chocolate pudding!

No wonder Choco Soil is so popular among youngsters in Jakarta. It’s so unique, whereby you may not be able to find it anywhere else in the city. It costs 55,000 IDR (4.17 USD) for a bucket of Choco Soil. Also try the smooth, creamy, sweet and sour Virgin Berry Kiss cocktail and the newest signature dessert of Choco Bomb, a rounded soft cake with chocolate mousse inside, which cracks open after drenched with hot chocolate!

4. Samudra Laut 73

Do you love eating salmon? Not only is this fish delicious, but it’s also one of the sources of food which is rich with omega 3, known to have a very good effect on health.

If you’re a salmon-lover, you need to go to Samudra Laut 73, a small restaurant located in the northern part of Kelapa Gading District. Here you can find many varieties of salmon dishes, such as salmon steak, salmon satay and salmon fried rice. For salmon steak, they have several choices of dressing, such as barbecue and black pepper sauce, but if you want something different, try their sweet, red and spicy rica rica sauce.

There are actually many restaurants in Jakarta that serve salmon, but this is the only one in Jakarta specializing in serving salmon and where you can eat in style. Under your table is a living aquarium with real fish (most are goldfish) and this is the highlight of eating here; you will be eating your salmon while being accompanied by real living fish! The ship-themed ornaments, like round windows (you can’t see from the windows, as they are actually mirrors) and a compass attached to the wall, make you feel like you are eating inside a boat.

5. Ah Poong floating market

There are lots of malls in and around the area of Jakarta and, when you are hungry, the easiest way to eat is, of course, to go to the nearest mall and eat at its food court; there are so many options of food to choose. However, nothing is like what you can experience at Ah Poong floating market, Sentul District, Bogor, a city with relatively cooler weather, less than an hour’s drive from Jakarta.

Is it something like the floating markets in Thailand? Well, not exactly. This is a food court right by the river of Cikeas, where not only can you choose what you want to eat from the food stalls, but this is also a place where you can dine while enjoying the view of the river and ride a boat on the river before or after your meal!

There are more than 40 food stalls in the food court, and many sell different international foods (Chinese, Japanese and Western). However, while you are in Jakarta, why not eat Indonesian food as well?

From soup such as soto (yellow soup with turmeric) to appetizers like tahu goreng (fried bean curd), these are just a few kinds of Indonesian food you can find here. However, go to Cakwe Galaxy for a type of Indonesian deep-fried soft and savory brown snack called cakwe, and if you’d like to have some soup, there is a nice stall named Iga Bakar Halumbira (Halumbira Grilled Ribs), where you can find a very popular type of soup among many Indonesians, sop buntut (oxtail soup).

If you have kids with you, they should be happy as there is a park in the area with popular animation replicas, such as the Transformer robot of Optimus Prime, and a pond where you and you kids can feed the fish with pellets.