Baraonda Bali Is Our New Italian Lover

Usually when you’re the kind of person who glibly announces that you were the first person to appreciate a new and shiny cultural item, you would not be welcome at Qraved Journal. Were you the first Health Goth? The first kids on your block to fall in love with FKA Twigs? A devoted follower of the weird Twitter? Great, neat, whatever. We cannot eat any of those things, and therefore we care little.

But when someone is like, ‘We just found the best new Italian in Seminyak.’ We take notice. We demand more information. We go, and we eat, and then we tell the world. Baraonda needs to be told about, because it is good.

Fill Your Stomach and Bless Your Soul

When you’re moving into the relatively competitive arena that is dining in Seminyak — to which we mean ‘hardcore culinary shark tank’ — you’ve got to have a certain hardcore je ne sais quoi. You could start with the fact that the food is good in the way rustic Italian food is supposed to be good; yeah, the presentation is there, but what you really want is something that will fill your stomach and bless your soul. Fagilio All Fiasco is a Roman-style white bean soup that is the height of eating in a way that prides authenticity over all. It could be served in the humblest Italian kitchen, because it is a recipe that cannot be improved by modern reinvention.

Raviolo Burro E Salvia. Anyone who believes in Italian knows that the difference between a fraud and a friend is fresh made. The ravioli at Baraonda is fresh made, because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be writing this article. And like every good rustic dish, you’re dealing with flavor profiles that are rich and bold because subtle isn’t what you want after a long day of work, but also has the deep textures that only come from someone who has put their time in behind a range.

#Italian #Brutal #Squad

But more than anything that makes this place work, its the lack of pretense. You want a Michelin-worthy kitchen where the wait staff is imperious, the food is ‘quirky’ and ‘a revelation’, and your payment choices include Amex and wire transfer from your Swiss bank account? There’s plenty of that, and honestly, there’s no problem with it, either. What makes eating in Bali so amazing is that those kinds of places exist here.

But Baraonda isn’t that. Baraonda is the kind of place where the owner refers to his kitchen as the Italian Brutal Squad. Baraonda is the kind of place where you can get a damn good sandwich for lunch, or blow off the morning’s yoga to get a pile of eggs and sausage. This is food, glorious and simple and good. This is what a good Italian kitchen should be about, and the fact that you’re still reading this when you could be eating at Baraonda disappoints us.

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