Barra Jakarta — Restaurant in Jakarta

Barra brings depth and sophistication in their peruvian japanese inspired dishes. At first glance, their menu sounds typical to the many izakayas in Jakarta. However, hiding behind seemingly it's mainstream menu is well crafted dishes that manages to wow, showing that technique and attention to details separates Barra from the rest.

⏩Food: 4.8/5 Beef cheek bone marrow rice, grilled fish, truffle-lime sashimi, pumpkin tempura. These may sound on par for japanese izakayas and their wannabees here in Jakarta but Barra did all of them really well. The beef cheek is flavorful and tasty. The bone marrow never overpowering. The mackerel for the fish is line caught that morning by a fisherman in the lombok strait (at least according to the chef, as he showed us some pics). The pumpkin tempura was fluffy, crispy and oh so light. Even their kushiyaki was great, especially the intercostal for me. The truffle lime kanpachi was amazing! I'm not a big fan of this trite and tired trend of truffle in jkt restaurants, but man did Barra proved that there are chefs who can do it tastefully here and not succumb to the mainstream palate.

Dessert great. Get the pina colada one. Refreshingly yum!

⏩ Drinks 5/5 Tried their East & Eternity and was super pleasantly surprised. Complex and fresh without being too sweet. Their other cocktail on promo was icy and meh but those are 26k so whatevs right haha. Will be back for the rest!

⏩ Service 4.8/5 Attentive servers. Refilled the tea pot, swapped bowls between two different desserts (one was fresh and Fruity, the other chocolatey). Also mind you that the sharing bowls for dessert was COLD so that your ice cream doesnt melt too fast. Nice attention to detail!

⏩ Vibe 4/5 Nice decor, not too crowded. Sumi-E paintings. Cute. Perfect for a date. Sadly, the Bar by Barra (same owner) upstairs is not separated thru a door. That means when the music starts playing it leaks downstairs to the restaurant. And yes the pesky cigarette smell also wafts down to the resto 😩

⏩ Value 4.1/5 - 500k ppax 500k ppax for shared food, dessery and cocktail. On the more expensive side but highly worth the price. Yes.

⏩ Overall 4.8/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ will come back for everything else...

Didn't visit the resto, but visited Bar Barra above Barra restaurant, they churned out great selection of creative cocktails all night long. Suitable for izakaya snacks and talks, with music and a cozy atmosphere. I'm lucky since they have crazy cocktail promo on the 26th of each month: Spiced Old Fashion (rum sous-vide spices, mandarin syrup, bitter cacao, jelly mandarin) This one for the ol' gentleman. Aromatic, punchy, bitter but the jelly mandarin washed it off in the end. Clever.

Pink Cuba Libre (spice rum, fanta reduction, acid solution, vanilla, cherry-lime) Light and sweet, easily likeable.

Mango Mai Tai (vodka, mango jam, acid solution, lemongrass syrup) 🌟 My favourite, this one is uniquely addicting. Fresh, sour, strange, it hooked my tastebud. People next to me ordered 8 glass of it 😅

They have live music bands on late weekend nights so book in advance since seats...

Fusion Indonesian and Western cooking styles. Every dish was a taste adventure, done to perfection. Cocktails were unique twists on traditional themes and I quite enjoyed the chocolate old fashioned.

Staff were attentive and explained each dish. Very polite and helped maintain the quality of the experience.

I took a star off the atmosphere because they cranked up the volume of the music halfway through our meal, making the conversation challenging, otherwise it'd have been a clean sweep. Left he samencomment on their feedback form and the management did apologize so hopefully this...