This Is Bali - Balinese Food & Desserts: Where to Eat

How this guide was made: Editor-reviewed, AI-assisted. Facts are pulled from live Google Places data; images are licensed or public domain. See our editorial policy.

Why go

This Is Bali has built its reputation on doing Balinese comfort food well and consistently — that’s how a restaurant accumulates 18,000+ reviews and holds a 4.9 rating in a town saturated with competition. The menu leans into dishes that can be hard to find well-executed outside home kitchens or temple ceremonies: babi guling (spit-roasted spiced pork), lawar (minced meat or jackfruit mixed with grated coconut and spices), nasi campur (mixed rice plate with several small side dishes), and a dedicated dessert section featuring things like dadar gulung (pandan crepes rolled around sweet coconut) and bubur injin (black rice pudding). For visitors who want an accessible, English-menu introduction to real Balinese flavors — rather than a pan-Asian tourist menu — this is a solid, low-risk choice.

Getting there

The restaurant sits on Jalan Goutama No. 2, a short pedestrian-friendly lane just off Ubud’s main Monkey Forest Road area, within walking distance of the Ubud Palace and Ubud Market. If you’re staying anywhere in central Ubud, it’s typically a 5–15 minute walk. From further out (Sanur, Canggu, Seminyak), expect 45 minutes to over an hour by car or scooter depending on traffic, which builds heavily around Ubud’s town center by midday. Grab, Gojek, or a hotel driver are the easiest options; parking in the immediate area is limited, so scooter or ride-share beats a private car if you’re coming from outside Ubud.

What to eat

Start with a shared nasi campur to sample multiple dishes at once — it usually arrives with rice, a protein, lawar, and a few vegetable and sambal accompaniments. Babi guling is the dish to order if you eat pork; it’s a Balinese ceremonial specialty of slow-roasted, spice-stuffed pork, and doing it well is a genuine craft. For a lighter option, look for grilled fish or chicken sate lilit, minced meat satay pressed onto skewers (often lemongrass stalks) and grilled. Save room for dessert — this is one of the few Ubud restaurants that treats Balinese sweets as a real course rather than an afterthought: dadar gulung, klepon (rice flour balls with palm sugar centers), and bubur injin are all worth trying if available. Prices sit in the mid-range for Ubud (price level 2), so a full meal with dessert and a drink remains reasonable by international standards, though exact menu prices should be checked on-site or via the current online menu since they do shift.

When to go

Ubud’s lunch rush (roughly 12–2pm) and early dinner (7–8:30pm) are when this restaurant is busiest, given its review volume and popularity. Arriving right at opening or in the mid-afternoon lull (around 3–4pm) gives you a much better shot at a table without a long wait. Weekends and Balinese ceremony days can also bring extra foot traffic to the Jl. Goutama area generally, so build in flexibility if visiting then.

How to visit like a local

This restaurant is firmly on the tourist map — it is not an undiscovered spot, so treat the wait time as part of the plan rather than a surprise. The single best way to avoid a queue is timing: go for an early lunch (11:30am) or late afternoon meal instead of peak hours. Most diners order a shared spread rather than individual mains, which suits the format of nasi campur and lets a group taste both a savory dish and a dessert without over-ordering. Cash and cards are both commonly accepted at Ubud restaurants of this size, but carrying some rupiah cash is still sensible in case of system outages, which do happen periodically. Tipping isn’t obligatory in Bali the way it is in some countries — rounding up or leaving small change is appreciated but not expected. The most common visitor mistake here is skipping dessert entirely after a filling main course; given how few restaurants nearby take Balinese sweets seriously, it’s worth pacing your meal to leave room. If you’re short on time, ask staff which dishes are freshly made that day, since some Balinese specialties like babi guling depend on the day’s roasting schedule.

Nearby to pair with your visit

After eating, walk off the meal along Jl. Goutama itself, lined with bookshops, coffee spots, and boutiques, or head toward Ubud Palace and Ubud Market, both a few minutes away, for an afternoon of temple architecture and market browsing.