Author: samantha

Workmen unobtrusively scurry between the old Karma Kandara wine bar and the new lounge just a few metres away, to be completed by the time you’re reading this. Below, an uninterrupted view of the Indian Ocean and vast blue sky stretches into the distance, a light breeze stirring the tropical humidity. It takes no effort…

Said Alem sits behind a desk at the nerve centre of the new Métis Restaurant and Gallery, but it doesn’t look like a pose he strikes very often: He’s tall, fit, casually clad in a T-shirt and bursting with an energy that can’t possibly allow him to remain immobile for long. This energy, no doubt,…

Zipping across the island in a hunt for fresh tomatoes was not something William Gumport envisioned lying ahead when he jetted into Bali last July to head Ayana Resort’s upmarket Dava restaurant. But he has found himself making a mad moped-dash for them, along with a sprinkling of other items, as he settles in to…

It began with two weeks of peeling prawns at a restaurant for no pay a quarter of a century ago, give or take: Now the sparkling culinary career of Australian Simon Blaby has brought him to Karma resorts in Bali, where he’s shaking up menus and adroitly steering esteemed Di Mare, Nammos and the Steakhouse…

The picture looks a little something like this: Ku De Ta’s iconic red diamond umbrellas are vibrant against an impossibly azure sky, a light breeze swirling wisps of white cloud on the horizon. Sprawling daybeds beckon you to stretch out on this sunny morning, sip a smoothie and get mesmerised by the rolling Seminyak surf…

It has to be a special moment for glasses to be stilled at a Karma Kandara wine dinner, and this is one of them: wine curator Maria Lurighi breaks into the Cherubino aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, serenading a couple who became engaged at the resort earlier in the day. Her voice powers out…

Richard Millar darts around his tiled-and-stainless steel kitchen, asking the four chefs kicking off service tonight when various items will be ready. Crisp replies cut through steam curling from bubbling saucepans. As products appear, Richard assembles plates of his unique cuisine, which he struggles to define in a phrase but essentially takes Japanese produce and…

Chef Brandon Huisman is hungry. He wants to know whether I like pizza, and do I eat pork? I do, and I do. “The chorizo flatbread, please,” he orders as the final dish for our lunch. We’ve a table at sleek-lined Faces, the in-house eatery at The Bale in Bali’s tranquil Nusa Dua. All wood…