Luna Beach Club: Bali’s newest, coolest beach club

It’s no exaggeration to say that every day, a new restaurant or bar opens in Bali. Such is the frenetic pace of development on the island as it labours to accommodate and entertain the post-pandemic travel boom.

But no other opening in Bali this year has drawn more people or created a greater buzz than the March 2 launch of Luna Beach Club, despite the bad weather. Thousands of people braved the rain to see what all the fuss was about.

Set on 2ha of beachfront land in the rural idyll of Nyanyi on Bali’s west coast, some 90 minutes from the airport, this mega-venue features sculptures as big as lighthouses that come alive at night with 3D projection mapping, vast oasis-shaped swimming pools, and five restaurants and bars.

A week after the grand opening, I hopped down to Nyanyi to check out Luna Beach Club’s signature restaurant, which is rather boringly called Luna. But the restaurant’s interior could not be more striking. The open-sided building is made almost entirely from giant bamboo tees that shoot up at different angles to converge at an apex where they converge like spaghetti to form a giant central column shaped like a giant tree.

The furniture can be described as postmodern tropical, and I am told it is all hand-made. There are waiters all over the shop, and the service is brisk. A few minutes after taking our seats, we are served cold water and a round of cocktails — coconut daiquiris that taste like really good pina coladas and are served in hollowed-out coconut shells.

Because I’m lazy, I ask the chef to bring out whatever he or she wants. They start with a small pizza with homemade tomato sauce, an alternative to sliced bread, and it’s excellent. The starters include shucked oysters, chicken liver parfait on brioche and wagyu beef carpaccio with truffle oil. Then come the mains, a selection of fastidiously well-grilled meats: slow-cooked barbecue organic chook, a wagyu rib-eye steak with a marbling count of 80 and roast suckling pig. The sides are the same as you’d get anywhere – creamy mashed potato, super-crunch potato wedges, crisp asparagus with lemon and parmesan and a fresh garden salad.

In fact, except for the desserts – custom creations based on grilled pineapple, Valrhona chocolate or strawberries ‘n’ cream – the menu comprises dishes you can get anywhere else in the world. There is nothing ‘Balinese’ about it. It’s just a high-end surf ‘n turf with a price tag to match: our bill for three came to a princely $400, which included nine cocktails.

Luna Beach Club co-owner James Ephraim, an executive chef by training, explained why the menu is so ‘safe’.

“You are dead right when you say it’s safe. It’s full of all the options people are already familiar with, and there’s a reason for that,” he said.

“About 10 years ago, I opened a much smaller beach club called Mozaic that had a degustation menu. Fine dining. But it just didn’t click with people coming in straight from the beach. What I learned is that if you take food to a certain level that people are not familiar with in a beach club, you’re going to get into trouble.”

But the menu at Luna on the opening week and the menu James envisions two months down the truck will be two totally different things, he says, rattling off plans for a dinner and light show extravaganza with two different parts of the club. The first seating will be based on seafood, and there will be 3D mapping with an ocean theme projected onto Luna’s lighthouse. The second seating will be more meat-based and accompanied by a light show based on a different idea they’re still working on. Watch this space.

+ Dave Smith was a guest of Luna Restaurant. They have not seen or influenced this story.

lunabeachclubbali.com