Chez Gado Gado (Seminyak, Bali)

Chez Gado-Gado is a fine dining restaurant located at the end of Jalan Dhyana Pura in Seminyak, with a view on the beach.

It is rather expensive, about 200,000rp for a main course (with an additional 18% tax and service). They are part of the same group behind Ku De Ta and Cocoon, with a few foreigners among the management. In particular, the Executive Chef Quirijn Rademaker is from Holland.

The menu is rather small and features mostly gastronomic dishes. It gave me an excellent first impression. The friends who accompanied me were expecting Indonesian food (because of the name Gado Gado), so they were disappointed and I was the only one to eat.

I had the "Rogan Josh" Sea Bass (Rp 180,000++) and the Beetroot Salad (Rp 85,000 ++). The portions were surprisingly big but I didn't like both dishes. The salad had too much sauce and it had nothing subtle about it. The Sea Bass was hard to eat and overcooked. The sauce was a curry that tasted similar with the "rendang paste" from the warung next to my home.

The service was not very good as well. For instance, the waiter brought the bread/olive oil served normally as an appetizer only after the main course arrived. Then, after I finished eating, nobody came to pick up my plates for 30 minutes. I made a small list of all the anomalies I saw but I had to stop as it was getting too long...

There was also not a standard uniform for all staff. Some of there were wearing traditional clothes, some wearing t-shirts. One of them even had a Harley-Davidson polo. To be fair, I think it was a public holiday so this may be unusual.  Still it killed the fine dining mood for me. 

At last, the environment is not as nice as I was expecting. The sea can be seen, but there is also a small road before it with motorbikes passing by every minutes. As you can see on the picture it is not an exceptional sight:

Overall: Chez Gado-Gado was a disappointing experience considering the money I paid. I will not go back unless they make some significant improvement in the atmosphere, food and service. For fine dining, I still prefer going to Metis restaurant for instance.