Ni Putu Asri

Ni Putu Asri grew up in Gianyar — the cultural heartland of Bali — in a family where cooking was inseparable from ceremony. By the time she was a teenager, she had already participated in dozens of communal feasts for temple ceremonies, cremation rituals, and harvest celebrations. She learned that Balinese cooking is never just about feeding people: it's about creating a sensory experience that marks a moment in time.

That foundation gave Asri something rare: the ability to make traditional Indonesian food feel both genuinely authentic and completely appropriate for a villa setting with international guests. She is not presenting food as a performance of culture — she is cooking the way she was raised to cook, then adapting the presentation and pacing for guests who may be encountering these flavours for the first time.

Her Indonesian feast menus typically open with a selection of sambals and crackers, move through dishes like ayam betutu (slow-cooked spiced chicken), jukut urap (coconut vegetable salad), and lawar, and land on a rice centrepiece surrounded by 6–8 accompaniments. For guests who want a single memorable Balinese dinner in their villa, Asri's feast is the most requested experience after Adriano's tasting menu.

Beyond traditional cooking, Asri has also developed a sharp instinct for Asian fusion — dishes that draw on Indonesian, Thai, and Japanese techniques to create menus that feel fresh and contemporary without losing their regional identity. Her miso-glazed tempeh and her tamarind prawn curry are two examples of how she navigates the space between tradition and innovation.

For villa guests, booking Asri means booking someone who genuinely loves the food she's cooking and brings the kind of warmth to a kitchen that guests feel even before the first plate arrives.