The place
A restaurant inside a garden
Moksa sits in Sayan, on the edge of Ubud, with the dining room opening onto its own permaculture garden. The food is plant-based, raw and heated, and most of what is on the plate grew a few steps away.
Balinese · Sayan, Ubud, Bali
Moksa
with Chef Made Runatha
Plant-based fine dining at Moksa
Moksa is a plant-based, farm-to-table restaurant in Sayan, Ubud, set in a 2,500 square metre permaculture food forest. Its founder and executive chef, Made Runatha, formerly cooked at Five Elements, and runs a culinary academy where Chef Elliot apprenticed: raw and heated technique, every dish prepared in devotion to its ingredients.
Visit Moksa →
The garden
Replicating the forest
The garden follows the forest: fruit trees, roots, herbs and chilies layered the way they grow wild. Turmeric, galangal, lemongrass and lime leaf come in from it every morning.
The teachers
Chef Made Runatha and the academy team
Chef Made trained in European and Asian kitchens and at the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute in California before founding Moksa. His academy, Culinary for Soul, teaches the techniques of raw and heated plant-based cooking.
The class
Culinary for Soul
Hands-on days in the academy kitchen: spice pastes, cashew cheeses, raw lasagna, Balinese sambals, plating. Demonstration first, then every student at the board.
The plates
Raw and heated
Beet tartare with mango, a raw pastry stack, kelp-noodle pad thai, young jackfruit in curry leaves: the finished plates of the course, raw and heated side by side.
In the kitchen
Chef Elliot at Moksa
Days of cooking beside Chef Made: grinding pastes, blending, plating, tasting. The raw technique on the Roots Alchemy menu comes from here.
Dishes from the Moksa academy
Plated during the apprenticeship with Chef Made: raw and heated plant-based dishes, every one from the food forest.
Beet and mango dessert
A beet-cashew cheesecake round, mango, purple sweet potato cream and a chocolate shard.
Beet tartare
Raw beet tartare over avocado, dots of mango sauce.
Raw pad thai
Kelp and vegetable noodles in a tamarind-cashew sauce, sprouts, lime and herbs.
Raw noodle salad
Spiralised zucchini and carrot in a creamy sauce, finished with microgreens.
Vegetable sushi roll
Nori roll with mango, avocado, carrot and sprouts, with a tamari dipping sauce.
Noodle-wrapped roll
A vegetable roll bound in a lattice of crisp fried noodles.
Beet and pastry stack
Layered beet and pastry, greens, grilled pear and balsamic.
Dragon fruit crepe
A crepe with mango sauce, served with dragon fruit, mango and banana.
Young jackfruit
Young jackfruit from the garden, the base of Balinese curries.
Guest appearance: Chef Simon Jongenotter at Zest
Also in Ubud: time with Chef Simon Jongenotter at Zest, the plant-based restaurant in Penestanan.
Visit Zest Ubud →About Moksa
Chef Made Runatha
Founder and executive chef. After years in hotel kitchens in Bali and abroad he studied raw and living foods at the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute in California under Cherie Soria.
Permaculture garden
A food forest beside the dining room, planted the way a forest grows; a garden tour runs three mornings a week and a farmers market on Saturdays.
Culinary for Soul
Moksa's academy: two-hour hands-on classes in raw food, plant-based heated cooking and Balinese plant-based cuisine, from the base genep spice paste to raw cheesecake.
More of where I trained