Chef Syrco Bakker is proving that the boldest move is knowing when to hold back and let the ingredients speak for themselves.
The resort island of Bali has no shortage of chefs telling stories about Indonesian ingredients, but Chef Syrco Bakker has always been more interested in getting out of the way of them. At Syrco BASÈ, his acclaimed culinary hub hidden away in the rice terraces of Ubud, that instinct has just gotten sharper.
The venue — spanning KU culinary atelier, Syrco BASÈ Restaurant and Syrco BASÈ Bar — has unveiled evolved menus across all three spaces, the next step in a philosophy built on traceability, nature and transparency since day one.
It helps to know who’s behind it. Chef Syrco spent 2010 to 2023 as executive chef of Pure C in the Netherlands, earning the restaurant two Michelin stars before relocating to Bali. Two and a half years into Syrco BASÈ, the menu evolution is less of a reinvention and more of a tightening of the focus that has made the restaurant one of Bali’s hottest tickets.
“When we opened, we were still discovering how we wanted to express Indonesia through our food,” says Chef Syrco. “Today, we understand our ingredients and the people behind them much better. That changes the way you cook.”
Nowhere is that clearer than at KU culinary atelier, the group’s flagship and most intimate room, home to just 12 seats around a slightly sunken kitchen, so every guest has a clear line of sight into the cooking. Chef Syrco runs KU with Chef Dawid Koszykowski, who arrived in Bali after working through several Michelin-starred kitchens in his native Poland. Together with local producers and the Syrco BASÈ gardeners, they’ve built an 11-course menu of “moments”, focused entirely on seasonality.
Traceability shows up most vividly in Catch of Oka, pairing whatever Jimbaran fisherman Oka has caught that day, paired with algues and oyster. Oka sends photos of his catch each morning and the kitchen builds around what he’s hauled in, rather than placing a standing order.
“That relationship is more interesting to us than demanding the same fish every day,” explains Syrco. Elsewhere, a Shrimp moment plays against marigold, tarragon and chicken; Hamachi meets jambu air and celery; and dessert closes on klepon and rujak, layered with an unexpected sambal matah praline.
At Syrco BASÈ Restaurant, the tasting menu’s structure will feel familiar to returning guests — the real shift is in refinement. Three opening bites, including a shrimp tartare laced with sambal merah and torch ginger, lead into shared starters, including more of Oka’s bounty, this time with cucumber; Lombok oysters with fennel and calamansi; a tomato-and-hamachi plate carried over from the restaurant’s PURE menu; Nusa Dua crayfish; and farm chicken finished in bumbu hitam.
The on-site garden is doing more work than ever, supplying coconuts, herbs and fruit directly to the kitchen, and Syrco BASÈ Bar has a refreshed menu featuring a beef tartare with rendang sauce and a taro rosti under ayam betutu. As Chef Syrco puts it, the goal is for every dish to speak for itself.
The evolved menus are live now across all three venues at Syrco BASÈ in Ubud.
