Ati Raja — Restaurant in Makassar

This place is quite popular among locals, but personally, I think it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Here are some impressions from my visit:

🍜 Food Taste & Texture • The overall taste might not suit everyone’s preference. • The broth tastes more like a light clear soup (sop) rather than the rich, savory bakso broth that most people expect — it feels mild and less meaty in flavor. • The noodles for bakso are small, yellow, and not chewy at all. For mie ayam, the noodles are very thick and dense, which can feel quite heavy. • If you want to try, I suggest going for the mixed bakso bowl. Personally, I prefer the soft (halus) meatballs, since the coarse (kasar) ones were quite tough and lacked a meaty taste — more like siomay, though I honestly prefer actual siomay.

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🍌 Dessert Handling • If you order es pisang ijo, make sure to ask them to serve it later. I ordered bakso and pisang ijo together, and both came at the same time — so the ice melted before I could finish my meal.

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🚫 Policy • Note that outside food or drinks are not allowed. If you bring any, they’ll charge a Rp 20,000...

Ati Raja is a famous meatball restaurant in Makassar city. Since they receive so much love from the customers both locally and outside Makassar city, Ati Raja also provides the frozen meatball as a souvenir to bring back home.

They also have many outlets in this city. This one that I visited was in Gunung Merapi street that has a large space with street parking outside. Musholla is also available. In this outlet, they also sell some snacks and syrup as the typical souvenir from Makassar.

Besides meatball, Ati Raja provides the other menu as well. There are fried rice, noodles, kwetiaw, bihun, soto Banjar, otak-otak, and many more.

I tried Bakso Ati Raja (IDR 30,000). A bowl of plentiful soft beef meatballs, beef muscle meatballs, nyuknyang in a clear broth with green onions. Served it with lime and if you like spicy, don't forget to add it! You could eat them together with rice or buras. I chose buras...

The authentic bakso from Makassar that you really can’t find anywhere else, definitely a must-try when visiting the city. I ordered the Bakso Ati Raja mix, which came with bakso ati raja, boiled nyuknyang, and fried nyuknyang. The taste is consistently good and never changes over the years.

I also tried their pisang ijo, but for me it was nothing special, I didn’t really enjoy the texture of the skin. Their jalangkote was not bad though.

Service was fairly quick and the prices are worth it. However, I have to say that while most of the staff were okay, a few of them came across as a bit unfriendly.

They also serve a takeaway package that you can bring home as a souvenir, which is a nice touch if you want to share the taste of Makassar with...