Here we go! The first part of my Bali gluten free adventures – starting with FOOD and all the kick-butt restaurants we (me + my friends Chris and Kate) visited, from tiny little Warungs to restaurants that looked like they were in the middle of the jungle (on the inside!) in the middle of the city. All the (awesome) places we stayed and things we did coming soon in parts II and maybe III! I’ll start with the good news:

Overall, it was really easy to find gluten-free food in Bali… 

…and almost everywhere we went was very accommodating to dietary restrictions of any kind. There’s a big vegan/vegetarian culture here too (probably thanks to Eat, Pray, Love and all the yogis and meditation retreats galore).

Know before you go – Pro tips for safe Bali gluten free travels:

• If you have a food allergy or serious dietary restriction, consider going online and printing out a card that explains your allergies. On celiac.com you can print out a gluten-free travel card in almost any language (yes, they even had Indonesian!) Which explains exactly what celiac is, and the exact foods that you must avoid any kind of contact with (including cross-contamination) to not get sick.
• Most people speak English in Bali until you go to the less-populated places or very small family-style restaurants. In those situations, the above celiac travel card was really helpful! But we only encountered that a handful of times in two weeks.
• Stay in a place where breakfast is included if you can! You’ll save some $$ and be able to get right out to adventuring.
• TripAdvisor will be your best friend. It was the only thing I used to find restaurants, even in the smallest of towns!
• Most places we went were casual except a handful of nicer, upscale places

Terms to know (we figured them out so you won’t have to!):

• Warung: a small, family-owned business (usually a smaller restaurant or café) and they are all over the place in Bali. They can range from a shack on the side of the road to a more well-known establishment. Want to know if it’s good? Check TripAdvisor for reviews (especially if you have any dietary restrictions). Smaller warungs may only take cash, so make sure you have some on hand.`
• Nasi Goreng: Indonesian fried rice, a traditional breakfast food . It will be *everywhere*. It comes with a fried egg on top, and is totally delicious. Sometimes you can get it with chicken or extra vegetables. It’s not always gluten-free because some places will use regular soy sauce unless it says GF on the menu. And even then, I would double-check with the server!
• Mie Goreng: Indoensian fried noodles (Mie = noodles). Similar to above, but using egg noodles. NOT gluten-free.
• Ayam = chicken
• Babi = pork
• Ikan = fish
• Nasi = rice
• Goreng = fried
• Bakar = barbequed
• Sate = meat on a stick, usually served with peanut sauce
• Babi guling  = traditional Balinese suckling pig
• Gado-gado = mixed vegetables with peanut sauce
• Cap Cay (pronounced Cap Chay) = mixed vegetables in a broth-based soup

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Let’s get to the restaurants!

These are organized by town/region, what meals we ate there, the type of food, and the ambiance – casual or fancy? Do I need to dress up? I’ve also included if there are GF markings available on the menu. Happy eating on your gluten free Bali travels!

KUTA & LEGIAN

• Legian 27 Café: Breakfast/Brunch – Smoothies/Salads/Sandwiches, casual. available for lunch as well. Great little coffee shop with everything from smoothie bowls, to salads, to brunch burgers. EATS: strawberry banana smoothie bowl (pictured), brunch burger. DRINKS: Matcha latte (not good. Very weird flavor), Americano coffees. GF markings on menu.
• Azul Beach Club: Lunch – Americanized Indonesian food, casual. fun beach club we found on our walk from Kuta Beach to Seminyak. Great spot to relax and grab a meal. GOOD EATS: the Mandira Chicken Satay skewers with peanut sauce and cucumber salad, iced coffee (more like a cappuccino) with bedugul cinnamon. SO GOOD.
• Cara Cara inn: Breakfast – upscale hostel. we stayed at this hostel the first two nights we were in Bali. Breakfast is included with the hotel (so clutch!) and even though they have a set menu (one for vegetarian and one for omnivores) when you inform them of any dietary restrictions, they can accommodate you. EATS: sunny side egg + salad + ratatouille the first day, and the second day was rice with a hard-boiled egg and green beans on the side. Pretty good for a free hostel breakfast!

SEMINYAK

• Ku De Ta: Lunch, Appetizers, Drinks – Fusion food, upscale pool/day club and restaurant. THIS PLACE. One of our favorite places the entire trip – a pool day club with great music, a great atmosphere, great food and drinks, an amazing pool overlooking the ocean, and great to watch the sunset here too. Great service, you can get a day bed if you spend over a certain amount (I believe it was $70 total, which isn’t hard to do between three people with food and drinks when we spent all afternoon there). Ended up going here once on the first day of our trip and back again the last day before we went to the airport late that night. EATS: Kimchi fries, butternut squash (gluten-free!) pizza made with a GF sourdough and banana flour base. DRINKS: pink punch (with rosé wine), espresso martini, passionfruit foam martini, dark and stormy. Some of the best cocktails we had on the whole trip. 5/5 stars! GF markings on menu.
• Sisterfields: Lunch – Australian, casual. One of our favorites of the whole trip. They have an all day menu (breakfast all day if you want it!) including smoothie bowls, from pancakes to benedicts, and all the way to poke bowls and desserts, and super inventive cocktails. EATS: Tiger Prawn Poke Bowl (Chris said this was one of the best things he’d ever eaten), Vietnamese Poached Chicken Salad, Crispy Skinned Barramundi. GF markings on menu. Definitely go here!!
• La Favela: Dinner – Argentinian. On the fancier side, definitely make a reservation. Loved it! Really cool atmosphere, like a jungle inside with little waterfalls and rivers/bridges running through the whole restaurant. EATS: Grilled Salmon Filet with BBQ jerk seasoning, banana purée, bok choi, banana chips. GF markings on menu.
• Bikini Resto: Dinner – Asian, Australian, International, upscale. You want to go out with a bang on your trip? This is where you go. This place is totally over the top, and definitely more expensive than most places we found in Bali. Food is designed to share here, and it’s very inventive! EATS: Babi Guling (roast pork to share), Roasted Carrots, Grilled Corn with Cashew Cream, Potato Gnocchi (not GF). It was good, and extravagant, but I thought we had better meals (for less expensive!) elsewhere.

ULUWATU

• Rock Bar @ AYANA Resort: Happy Hour & Dinner – tapas-style, fancier. Time to dress up! Holy freaking MOLY. Rock Bar is one of those places you see pictures of on the internet and can’t believe it’s actually real. Perched on the cliffs of Uluwatu, literally OVER the ocean. It’s unbelievable and you’d better believe you need to make a reservation to get in. I wish we’d made one for earlier so the sun hadn’t set before we got down there. When you’re waiting for your reservation time, you can check in and they’ll bring you to the Sunset Bar at AYANA, which also has a (no surprise) great view of the sunset and great cocktails. To get to Rock Bar, they take you down many stairs and a glass elevator, and walk you to your table – don’t be surprised if you’re in the sand overlooking the ocean! EATS: Octopus, Scallops, Greek Salad, Stuffed Chicken, Prawns. One of the best meals of the whole trip.
• He’enalu Cafe & Resto: Breakfast – Hawaiian-inspired with an Indonesian twist, casual. hit this place on the way to Omnia for the day. EATS: Nasi Goreng with a fried egg, Loco Moco (non-GF). DRINKS: Immunity (vitamin C + ginger shot), iced coffee (great!) GF markings on menu. Highly recommend! There’s a really cute natural foods store attached to the restaurant as welll.
• Wildflour Kitchen – Breakfast/Lunch, casual. Loved this trendy little place! EATS: Papaya ginger smoothie, dragonfruit smoothie bowl, Nasi Goreng (one of the best of the whole trip!). GF markings on menu.
• The Public Gourmet: Dinner – American/Health Food, casual. Breakfast and Lunch also available. Great find seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Very trendy interior (Kate’s favorite – whites, pinks, and lots of plants/paintings of plants) and great food too. EATS: Roast Chicken dinner.

PADANGBAI / CANDIDASA

• Warung Sunrise – White Sand Beach: Lunch – Indonesian, fresh-caught fish right on the beach. Potentially the best meal of the entire trip, and it was probably the cheapest too. EATS: fresh grilled mahi-mahi (caught that morning) with rice, cooked vegetables, boiled peanuts, and a trio of sauces: a garlic confit, tomato based sauce, and chili sauce. AMAZING.
• Lezat Restaurant: Indonesian – casual. Trendy place right on the water in Padangbai that also had live music and a bit of a traditional dance show too. EATS: Balinese curry with chicken. DRINKS: Cucumber mint juice.
• Sagara Candidasa Hotel: Breakfast was included with our stay here. EATS: Came with lots of fruit, eggs, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

CENTRAL UBUD

• The Fair Warung Bale: Dinner – Indonesian. Small little warung that donates medical treatments to those in need for every meal purchased at their restaurant. Such a cool concept! And instead of leaving a tip at the end, you can leave some extra money to go towards medical treatments too. So cool!! EATS: grilled mahi mahi with chili garlic sauce (the one we had on the beach was better, but you can’t really beat same-day-caught fish!), garlic prawns. DRINKS: mango juice, watermelon juice. Best mango juice of my LIFE. Like so good you’re sad drinking it because you don’t want it to ever end.
• Suka Espresso: Breakfast/Brunch – Australian. Hands down, best breakfast/brunch of the whole trip. So good, we went back twice, two days in a row! First, we went after doing the Mount Batur Sunrise hike – so after getting up at 2am, hiking up and down a volcano, and barely eating anything until we got to the restaurant at 10:30am, we were STARVING. (Delicious) EATS: the Fill It Up Breakfast, including – smoked bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled tomato, satuéed mushrooms, sautéed baby spinach, sliced avocado, hash browns, caramelized onions. Sourdough toast for non-gluten-free. Kate had the morning greens on day one, which was sautéed kale, quinoa, avocado, broccoli, beans, snow peas, onions, toasted almonds, pesto, and an egg. Wasn’t as tasty as it sounded. Can you guess which one we got when we went back the next day? Ha! DRINKS: Let’s Date smoothie with bananas, dates, cocoa, almond milk, and added espresso. So good!! GF markings on the menu.
• Clear Cafe Ubud: Brunch/Lunch – great international “health food”-inspired cafe with one of the coolest atmospheres ever, casual. They had a koi pond, a tree staircase, cushions on the floor to sit, you have to take your shoes off to go in too. About to get all hippie dippie in here. We weren’t looking for a meal here, but just wanted to get some juice for a snack. Yep, mango again. And it was great!!
• Warung Laba Laba: Dinner – Indonesian, Casual. Super authentic, inexpensive, exploding-with-flavor place we found for a later dinner. EATS: roast duck (special), balinese curry soup with chicken. Great!
• Teras Ubud: Happy Hour – casual, central Ubud. Only came here for some cocktails before a later dinner reservation. DRINKS: mojitos! In tons of different flavors. I had the original and the ginger. So good!
• Buddha Bowl: Dinner – Indonesian, Vietnamese fusion, casual. Honestly, this place wasn’t that great. It was fine, but we had much better food other places. EATS: beef pho, GF bibimbap, mie goreng.

Sweet tooth? These places were great in Ubud!

• Gelato Secrets: gelato is surprisingly a really big thing in Bali. No idea why, but it’s literally all over the place. Gelato on a stick outside temples and on the street, gelato shops everywhere. We found this one after dinner at the Fair Warung Bale and they had some great gluten and dairy-free gelato options!
• Taksu Galeria Deli & Cafe: Snacks – casual. Celiac-friendly, as advertised! Found this little gem while shopping around Ubud and wanted to find somewhere to rest for a little bit. Stumbled upon this place and right into gluten-free heaven. Kate and I had a gluten-free molten lava cake. SO GOOD.
• Ubud Raw: Chocolate Shop. Stumbled upon this place while shopping in Ubud. Go in for a chocolate tasting (costs about $1.50) and you get to try four different varieties of raw chocolate. It’s AMAZING.
• Coconut Café: Dessert/Gelato. Right across the street from Ubud Raw – dairy-free coconut gelato, may be the best you’ll ever have in your whole life. I also bought some coconut butter to bring home here!

OUTSIDE UBUD

• Warung Kintamani: Dinner – Indonesian, casual. Small place, definitely family-owned, about a 15-minute taxi ride outside Ubud but totally worth it. Heard about this place from our friend who we met at the Mai Organic Farm cooking class (who read about it from a travel food blogger he follows!), and WOW. Just wow. No one here spoke English, and you could tell all the people eating there were locals. The menu was on the wall, so we just pointed to things and ordered whatever they were. This was one of the occasions where we used the Indonesian gluten-free restaurant card, and felt totally fine after despite being really nervous about it. EATS: Ayam Nyat Nyat (roasted chicken smothered in a delicious chili sauce) which came with rice and cooked yucca + spicy green beans + multiple chili sauces, Ayam Bakar (grilled chicken in a curry sauce). Holy MOLY. One of the biggest flavor explosions of the whole trip.
• D’tukad River Club Bali: Lunch/Happy Hour – pool club, by Blangsinga (Gianyar) Waterfall. We happened upon this place after hiking up the side of the waterfall (what?! Is this real life?!) and stopped by to relax a little and get some food. EATS: pad thai. Wasn’t very good. Cocktails were better.
• Mai Organic Farm Bali: Lunch – Cooking class, casual. We found a cooking class here on AirBnb, booked it that afternoon and took the class the next day. Absolutely LOVED it – it’s about 30 minutes outside of Ubud, but they pick you up at your place. Amazing hosts, amazing experience, amazing food. Going to be writing a whole blog post about it! Learning to cook Authentic Indonesian food at Mai Organic Farm Bali (Review)
• Warung Makan Babi Guling “Bu-Ayu”. Lunch – Indonesian, casual. I don’t think this place is gluten-free (or 100% sanitary) but I think Chris might kill me if I didn’t include it in my restaurant roundup from Bali. All week he had been saying all he wanted was Babi Guling, or Indonesian suckling pig – which is a big specialty over there. So our tour guide for the day took us to this place that his buddy owns, and I’m pretty sure Chris’ tastebuds may have died of happiness.

NUSA PENIDA

• Warung Batan Sabo: Dinner – Indonesian, Casual. Loved this place! Had a really cool vibe, with a backyard for sitting outside and live music on the weekends. EATS: Balinese Curry Pork with rice. DRINKS: Mojitos were great here!
• Penida Kekinian: Lunch – Salads, Sandwiches, Burgers, Smoothies. Loved this cute little restaurant within walking distance of our place. Cool atmosphere, good food. Apparently their western-style food here is actually good (unlike a lot of other places we encoutered!) EATS: Kelinking smoothie bowl with frozen banana, mango, dragon fruit, pineapple, and granola.
• Warung J. Pudak: Dinner – Indonesian, Casual. Just off the main road, and tasty food. Atmosphere is a little weird, very dark and neon lighting (the food looks blue if you try to take pictures of it.) EATS: Cap Cay (delicious!!), Nasi Goreng (not great) and Mie goreng (not great – not GF either.)
• Poolside Café: Lunch – Health Food, Vegan/Vegetarian-friendly, Casual. Cool place to grab lunch and sit by the pool/take a little nap, but the food wasn’t very good here. I had the vegan salad, the tofu was mushy and weird. The smoothies tasted almost fake.

NUSA LEMBONGAN

• Sandy Beach Pool Club: Lunch/Dinner/Happy Hour – International, semi-casual. We loved this place so much we came back two separate times while we were staying on Nusa Lembongan (it was also really close to our place, so that was convenient!) Came here for dinner/drinks, and for lunch the following day. (Delicious) EATS: Tacos with Chipotle-spiced shrimp, Lembongan Guacamole, Grilled Whole Snapper, Grilled Australian Sirloin, Sandy Bay Nasi Goreng (came with satay too!) DRINKS: Mixed drinks with a frozen popsicle (paletas) inside. So good! Watermelon mojito and espresso martini were amazing. GF + other allergy markings on the menu too!
• Hai Bar & Grill: Dinner – International, semi-casual. Loved this place. Great atmosphere, great food, great drinks! We came at night when it was completely dark outside, but it would be great to come here during the day too, since it’s right on the water! EATS: Roasted Salad, Prawn Tail Salad, Fish of the day (white fish) with vegetable mix and coriander rice, Beef Rendang. So good!

Phew! Well if that’s not enough to satisfy your gluten free Bali needs, I’m not sure what else will do. I’ll definitely keep updating this list… the next time I go back?!

Tag along on some other gluten-free adventures in…

Denmark
Iceland
Walt Disney World
Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Orlando)
Las Vegas

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What do you think? Going to Bali any time soon and looking for some gluten free Bali options? or is it on your bucket list?