August, Jakarta

I noticed that there's a lack of posts on Indonesia restaurants in this sub so I decided to share this.

August is a restaurant offering contemporary fine dining takes on Indonesian-inspired dishes. They are the highest ranked restaurant in Indonesia in the World's Best 50 Restaurants Asia (not a good list, I know) and I believe they're the only ones to make it to the top 50 last year.

The menu changes every six months with minor changes every now and then, and this was a visit on the end of 2024 which was the last leg of their Season 6. Two courses are offered, at Rp 1250k and Rp 1850k and I got the cheaper one.

Located in an office building in central CBD part of the town, the tables weren't ready when I arrived so I was seated in the bar area and was offered a complimentary kombucha drink.

It was a last minute booking and I wasn't able to get the booking for the main dining area so I dined at the counter seating overlooking the dessert station. It turns out to be a good spot since it was the closest to the open kitchen.

• Glazed Mantau: Warm, fluffy bun paired with zesty butter
• Tempe, Oncom XO (1st pic): A combo of two traditional Indonesian dishes made from fermented soybeans. This set the bar very high since everything felt very fresh while still retaining the taste of the original dishes themselves.
• Hashbrown Rendang: A perfect representation of how an elevated rendang should taste like (sans the meat). The hashbrown itself was very crispy and light.
• Asinan Jakarta: Their take on a traditional salad dish, the interplay between the herbs, pineapple sauce, and the traditional peanut sauce was insane.
• Crunch Greens, Keluwak, Hollandaise: Keluwak is a type of spice used to make a soup dish called Rawon. I think its usage here is very out of the box and gives a nice flavor profile.
• Tomato, Black Tea, Smoked Fish: They used Japanese hamachi and some ikura. The dish had salty, sour, smoky and tea flavors in one.
• Scallop, White Curry, Oyster Mushroom: It was okay. The (Hokkaido) scallop wasn't particularly sweet.
• White Fish, Bilimbi, Ginger Flower: Black cod is used, with bilimbi sauce, and kecombrang (torch ginger) relish. Creative flavors but too overpowering for the fish. Also I believe the fish was sourced from the US and wasn't very fresh.
• Ox Tongue Steak, Green Chili, Capers: Aus wagyu tongue slow-cooked. Not remarkable and tried to do too many different things at once.
• Brussels Sprouts (addon, Rp 85k): Shareable for 2-3 pax.
• Strawberry, Rosella, Sirih Merah: Nice tartness and sweetness.
• Roasted Barley, Banana, Milk Jam
• Klepon (complementary): Their take on a traditional sweets which supposedly has a mochi-like texture, but their rendition explodes in your mouth instantly with bursting liquid brown sugar.
• Whiskey Choco Truffles. High quality chocolate from Aceh. Deep whiskey flavor.

I also got the non-alcoholic pairing, which is a steal at Rp 350k and contains around five creative and tasty concoctions. It's among the best I've had anywhere.

Overall, the first few items were very very strong and represented the local dishes well, but were dragged down by the lack of freshness in the ingredients of the main dishes. As it stands, they have good value for money but I feel like they should stick to using local ingredients instead of trying to use imported ones while keeping costs down. I feel that the Indonesian fine dining scene has just started to bloom and there's definitely potential for it to be on par with Bangkok and Singapore.