Vagabondo offers fine Mediterranean food with a modern bent in the heart of bustling Bali

The Greeks, like the Romans, use beets in a variety of dishes – from carpaccio to salads to even baked beet chips.

The word vagabondo is not exactly Greek in origin – it’s actually Italian for ‘vagrant’, ‘tramp’, ‘someone without a home’. Still, it’s the name given to one of the newer, better Greek-fusion (ie: Mediterranean) restaurants on Bali’s popular Jalan Petitenget.

While people will refer to it as “that new Greek restaurant” not everything on the Vagabondo menu is Greek. In fact a sign outside the venue and their Insta account will tell you it’s ‘not a Greek restaurant’. Actually, every third dish is kind of Italian in origin, so I guess that’s how they get away with that name. I don’t know, it’s all Greek to me. Except that it isn’t. But I digress…

Any which way, don’t expect the pedestrian likes of lamb kofta, souvlaki or that fishy dip of a dish, taramosalata, on the menu of this fine establishment. Rather, the regularly updated options currently include an unubiquitous Charred Amberjack (a large game fish caught in tropical waters of the South Pacific); Prawn & Pomelo (served with a passionfruit and lime dressing); and Grassfed Tomahawk (some of the best rib steak you’ll find in Kerobokan).

The physical menu itself is literally a tome of a book – as heavy as those wax tablets ancient Greek scribes used to doodle on. All of the menu items are manually written in the book and, as new items are added each week, you can imagine it starting to look like a thesis paper. Actually, it’s about as rustic as a menu can get – heck the menu may as well have been written on papyrus. But if you find all that too heavy, simply hop onto their website to see what’s available to eat, the modern way.

Because of the immense number of items on the menu, we figured we’d let the venue’s owner and maître d’ Morris Levis make the selections for us – to give us a kind of degustation dining experience. We couldn’t have made a better call.

Morris’ epicurean selections included easier dishes as introduction, such as a Basil Humus (the best humus I’ve tried) and a Beetroot and Goat Cheese Salad with candied walnuts, burnt orange and an orange vinaigrette.

The textures of the salad shift from smooth to crunchy to zesty in just a few chews, dancing on your tongue still, minutes after your last bite.

Then there’s the halloumi lashed with honey that’ll have you thanking one lovely sheep and every beautiful bee that contributed to it.

We then moved into ‘rawer’ territory with a Wagyu Beef Tartare served with tomato, basil and quinoa, and a Tuna Carpaccio sprinkled with black olive ‘dust’ and drizzled with yoghurt on a garlic bread crumble. You see, dishes here aren’t just food for filling you up – they’re works of art that taste as glorious as they look.

Next arrived the bigger plates – the aforementioned Tomahawk, carved to share, with the meat literally melting in the mouth, and a Blue River Prawn on a bed of chickpeas, the creature itself looking more like the size of a lobster. Suffice to say while that last dish was a little difficult to tackle in a shared setting, each delicious morsel made it worth the battle.

After sampling about eight savoury dishes all up, I didn’t have room for dessert but the sound of Sokolata (chocolate, fudge, hazelnut, orange and Cointreau) and poached pear in port wine (with yoghurt!) ensure I’ll be back to sample more on my next trip to Bali.

With prices as friendly here as you would find in a below-average restaurant in Seminyak (starters from AUD7, mains from AUD14, desserts from AUD7) you wouldn’t expect dishes which warrant appearances in their own cookbook, but that’s precisely what every dish on the Vagabondo menu is worthy of.

Step inside this cool and cavernous, rustically designed venue, and taste some of the most delicious European, epicurean dishes that lean mostly toward Greek but with influences from the west.

Morris Levis and his chefs are masters in presenting quality Mediterranean cuisine – and that’s coming from a Sicilian kid whose Mum’s cooking is just better than them lesser Mediterranean  joints.

Antonino Tati

Vagabondo is situated at No. 22 Jl. Petitenget, next to La Baracca and across the street from Da Maria.

Bookings can be made through Whatsapp on +62 813-5393-7848 and check out some of the menu at vagabondo-bali.com.