Room4Dessert, Ubud, Bali

Room4Dessert

Monica Tindall

We all understand fresh is best for chefs. Just-picked produce, whole ingredients, animals raised within a certain kilometre radius of a restaurant, knowing the farmer, foraging, a kitchen’s own herb garden – we’ve been sold on the value for some time now. However, have you ever thought about what that means for a pastry chef? Surely, most ingredients a pâtissier or confectioner would need come from a box, right? Chocolate, sugar, flour, milk… or… perhaps not…

Why couldn’t the essentials come directly from the source? When you live on the magical island of Bali and have world-renowned pastry chef Will Goldfarb’s knowledge, they absolutely can! Imagine everything in the kitchen fresh, local and whole: palm sugar from the sap of coconut palms, mylk from coconuts and cashews, chocolate from fresh cacao fruit, and spices grown so close by you could reach and pluck some from the kitchen window. That has to be a rich bounty of flavour, texture and aroma!

Room4Dessert

This thought compels Will Goldfarb in (literally) planting roots in Bali and the creation of the second rendition of his famed restaurant, Room4Dessert. Leaving a tumultuous and high-profile career in New York, Will has fashioned something special here. While his recipes garnered fame in the USA for their off-beat innovation and mind-blowing presentation, here in Ubud, he is growing something greater. Yes, expect to find a whole line-up of original recipes but also look a little deeper, and you’ll discover sourcing of ingredients that actually has a positive impact on the environment and community, alongside the development of team talent. The fanfare in Bali lies on a strong, meaningful foundation.

Local ingredients reduce the restaurant’s carbon footprint and support the local community. However, with the design of permaculture gardens, composting programs and nurturing of team members to formulate their own sustainable side businesses, goals become much more profound and lasting. I spend the evening with head chef Grace Costavina Prilia and the service and kitchen crew. They can’t speak highly enough of Will, his encouragement, vision and goals. He is undeniably an influential force in the lives of many, bettering his team and cultivating human capital.

Yes, yes, Will Goldfarb is on Chef’s Table too (Season 4 – watch it – excellent story), and was also named The World’s Best Pastry Chef, sponsored by Cacao Barry, at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2021. Still, Room4Dessert is much more than purely ticking off a celebrity sighting. It’s a place to be inspired, consider what more you could be doing, and support valuable work in progress.

Room4Dessert Menu – The Golden Age

The Golden Age menu at Room4Dessert reminds me of a three-tiered afternoon tea set. The trio of courses – savouries, desserts and petit fours – feature seven recipes each and are taken in three different locations. First, though, guests are orientated with a tour through the garden. It’s abundant with thriving herbs, spices and edible flowers. Many have just been plucked, already in the kitchen and will soon be seen on plates later in the evening.

Savouries

Bar seats and a glass-walled dining room are the location for the first round, savouries. An aperitif seems appropriate for the setting and the hour, and Room4Dessert obliges with a list of craft cocktails and wine. I’m mighty interested in The Alter Ego, Lazarus Pulp (IDR 140k++), a sparkling wine produced in Sanur using the Pét-nat method on a blend of chardonnay grapes from three different plots in Australia. It’s easy-drinking with a tropical fruit bouquet, creamy palate and acidic finish. The label drawn by an Australian-Indonesian artist warns that drinking too much could cause your alter ego to show. I take heed and move on to cocktails for the next course.

Ratatouille is a pretty picture to begin, a vibrant, roasted and skinned tomato covering finely shaved eggplant and zucchini. Topped with a sprinkling of salt and tulsi (basil family) oil, it’s fresh, tasty and elegant.

Febri delivers Banana Heart and instructs, “Use your hands; it’s more delicious.” Inspired by the layers and textures of artichokes, the blossom has been brined with cold nigari (extracted sea salt) and then fried. It’s served with carrot puree, curcuma and pickled shallots. Crunchy. Tasty.

Courgette “Truffee” sees baby zucchini still attached to the flower, stuffed with house ricotta, black shallot sauce and Balinese sea salt. This is chef Grace’s fave topped with lemon zest grown around Kintamani. It’s partnered with roasted moringa leaf infusion that’s been carbonated. The toasty notes really come through in the drink mate.

Plated as if a mini burrito ready to be rolled, the KFC Mushroom Lumpia is spread over soy milk skin. The thin “tortilla” holds toasted soy milk cream, a fried quail egg, milk curd, black garlic (slow-cooked for two weeks until umami), jicama and kaffir lime. After you’ve dutifully taken a photo, roll it up and munch in. It’s delicious graduation of textures.

Sweet Corn Custard looks very much like chawanmushi but is naturally sweeter, thanks to the stock of corn juice, roasted corn and ginger. Chilli oil, Malabar spinach, water spinach and pegaga break up the colour. It’s smooth and creamy with a taste of buttered corn in a cup. 

I think the Tartare with Apple is genius with a single sheet of green apple granita concealed snapper ceviche. Tap the top, and the ice crumbles, adding freshness to the coconut emulsion, coriander oil and pickled shallots. 

Just the Crust of Bread does not deserve the limiting modifier “just.” It is so much more. Crunchy sourdough is complemented with fermented cream butter, rose apple pickle, black kluwak (a black nut highly regarded by foodies in Malaysia and Indonesia). It “just” might be my favourite savoury dish.

Desserts

The passage to the second room and the dessert course includes a peek into the original kitchen and a backdoor pass to the dessert counter. Again, there are both bar seats (where the action is at) and more intimate dining tables. The second seven is a full dessert list plated by chef ViVi and her team. I’m not a sweet eater (I can picture my mother rolling her eyes now by the fact that I’m here). However, I manage to taste everything on this menu. Nothing is cloying or overly sweet. It’s not savoury, but at the same time, the character of ingredients that are naturally sweet are the protagonists rather than an extra spoon of sugar.

Red

The first dessert sees red fruit with rosella cream and watermelon granita blanketed with dragonfruit meringue. It’s surprisingly fresh, not artificially sweet. Partnered with the Linda Jackson mocktail, it’s a good balance of fruity freshness. Lemongrass, rosella and mangosteen syrup sounds cloying, but it has a tart conclusion. 

Grilled Papaya

Inspired by smoked salmon, hence the appearance, the grilled papaya resembles a firm fillet of pink fish on the plate. It’s accompanied by a burnt coconut sauce and papaya leaf oil. Baby sorrel leaves picked straight from the garden add a change of colour. The beauty of this dish is that you can have it as sweet as you like by including (or not) the coconut sauce.

Incidente Stradale

Incidente Stradale (traffic accident) looks anything but! An artful display of coconut vinegar meringue (not the traditional sickly variety), biscuit, coffee cream and jamu is topped with an elegant wide lace of chocolate. It’s almost too pretty to break.

Strawberry

The following recipe, Strawberry, is again wonderfully balanced. I love the comfort of rice pudding beneath milk skin and cempaka flower frozen meringue. Galangal, lemon peel and kaffir lime leaf all serve to brighten the profile.

Apple “Cookie”

Geometric shapes feature in the Apple “Cookie” with a stewed wedge of green apple topped with a crunchy semi-circle kenari biscuit and sided with a dob of frangipani cream. It comes together in the mouth as creamy, crunchy and fragrant.

Whiskey, Torture, Turgenev

Whiskey, Torture, Turgenev looks like a giant s’more (minus the chocolate square) with its biscuit base and torched lime meringue crown. In between, there’s arak mousse and grilled pineapple with hints of tarragon.

Bubbles and Islands

The final round of desserts is a choice of two if you’re dining alone or one of each if you’ve come as two. Mine is the Chocolate, an artistic swirl of cacao on cacao on cacao – chocolate bubbles, choc-chip cookies, warm chocolate spuma, lime gel to freshen and a magnificent twist of pulled chocolate sugar on top. It’s guaranteed to satisfy any chocoholic.

Petit Fours

The final round, Petit Fours, are served by the fire pit in the garden. It’s a magical ending in the cool evening air with the flickering light and sound of crackling wood.

First two – Coconut Milk Meringue with seaweed powder, and Sourdough Soft Serve – are delivered. Be prepared to snap your pics quickly before they melt. Then comes a tray of small treasures – financier tastier, little lemon doughnut, palm sugar cream puff, rosella gummy and toffee from Samsaman. Where to begin? I guess it doesn’t really matter. What’s more important is where you end. And, I end with Grace. Back again at the end of the evening, having delivered incredible service to a packed house, Grace shares more of her inspiring journey in Room4Dessert. People really do make a place, and the team that Will Goldfarb has nurtured here is something special.

Room4Dessert – The Details

The Full Tasting Experience is priced at IDR 1,290,000++ per person. The Spiritless Tasting costs IDR 1,090,000++, and an Unpaired Tasting is IDR 890,000++ per person. Book online and book early to avoid disappointment! Children are not encouraged at the restaurant and will be charged the same price as adults if you choose to bring them. There are no promises about catering to dietary preferences, but if you give the team at least one week’s advance notice, they might be able to work something out – be sure to check ahead.

Reasons to visit Room4Dessert: a unique evening out; a must for dessert-lovers for sure, but even non-sweet tooths will find the experience enjoyable; a chance to taste the possibilities when a pastry chef truly has access to the freshest of ingredients; sure, you can swoon over a meeting a celebrity and his team too; a good all-around feel with a team who are clearly appreciated by and greatly admire their leader.

Room4Dessert
Jl. Raya Sanggingan, Kedewatan, Kecamatan Ubud
Kabupaten Gianyar, Bali 80561, Indonesia

Room4Dessert Opening Hours
Tuesday to Sunday: 4 pm – 10:45 pm

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