For a change we decided to have lunch at the Gourmet Garage in Kemang, a suburb about 20 minutes from our home in Lebak Bulus. Gourmet Garage is a large barn (or garage) full of different gourmet foods, an oyster bar, a wine cellar, a bakery, a supermarket and various food court type outlets where you can sit down and order food from three menus. It has Japanese, Italian and “continental” types of cuisine. One could call it a successful merger of an Asian food court with a modern Western gourmet supermarket.
Inside the Garage, second floor
The Gourmet garage has become a favourite dining location for many in South Jakarta and although we have known about it for a while, we’ve never had lunch there. This Saturday was a perfect day for a visit. Margit did not feel like cooking and the girls came back from a soccer game (they won 5:0) and were hungry like wolves.
We found the parking lot full of cars. Fortunately, the garage is huge and we had no problem finding a table for four upstairs. My women folk went for Japanese food, I chose ‘Aussie Blue’ a hamburger type dish. Margit had a glass of unwooded Chardonnay, I stayed with a draft ‘Bintang’ beer.
Sashimi set
Japanese Tempura and Udon Noodles
Traditional Burger with Blue Cheese
We gave Gourmet Garage a very good rating. The service was friendly, efficient and fast. The quality of the ingredients was very good, so was the taste of the dishes. We loved the atmosphere and ended our day with a shopping tour in its supermarket.
We did not have sufficient time to check out the wine cellar, but it looked promising. The facility seemed to be a work in progress though. As wine drinkers we welcome any new outlet in town giving us more choice when selecting fine wines.
The wine cellar in the making
Address:
The Gourmet Garage
Jalan Kemang Raya, No. 66
Jakarta, Indonesia
Ph: +62-21-7197161
Postscript: From the internet I learned that there is also a Gourmet Garage in New York City.
The Man from Mosel River 
how’s the pricing there?
Hi Yodee,
the pricing is very reasonable I would say. Lately I had a complete Japanese dinner set (4 course meal) for about 300.000 INR. Western food is cheaper and the wine is served almost at costs. Check it out. It’s a great and fun place.
Regards Rainer
Hi… would you terribly mind if I used your picture of Gourmet Garage interior as above in one of my post on the blog? I am writing about one dinner I had there but totally forgot to take a picture of the place. Many thanks…
My husband and I have just eaten at Gourmet Garage and have to say we were very disappointed. My husband is currently whipping up panakes as after our gourmet lamb rack we got home and we were both still quite hungry. For $20 Aus we reckon we got 4 mouthfuls of fatty meat (hardly gourmet) and a tablespoon of so called roast vegie ratatouille hardly and this hardly constitutes good value. The so called wine jus tasted as thuogh it had come from a bottle. Also as non smokers I resent been shown to the dead section of the restaurant full of families with kids whilst smokers enjoy a much better ambience. Altogether not impressed and won’t be back. I doubt my friens will either. I guess I expected much more from an an Australian run restaurant. However it seems your primary objective is ripping people off not serving quality food.
Dear Bev Ferres I have never been to the Garage but you have to know, the tendency for Jakarta dining scene is that a lot of restaurants serve western/fusion food in a posh setting but unfortunately, the food is often quite poor in cooking&quality. Everything is imported and a friend of mine (who works with the government) told me that these “fancy” imported stuff are actually the bad ones in the original countries. For example, a bottle of wine you could get at GBP6 in the UK is priced at 660,000 rupiah per bottle. It is almost impossible to get Italian dishes made of FRESH pasta (restaurants use dried pasta instead). For something that costs 80,000-100,000 rupiah per portion I think this is an insult. But oh well. I could heartily recommend the Frech restaurant Boka Buka though, it’s very recommend they serve the food with heart and the setting is nowhere near fancy/pretentious. The focus is on the food. Not the poshness/trendiness. It was about GBP15 for an appetizer, main, wine and dessert so, very good value.
Have I told you that non smokers are often discriminised in Indonesian restaurants/cafes? Establishments have to loosen up policies to attract most customers (according to one research, 60% of Indonesian men are smokers). This is sad yet it is factual. I actually have to, almost all the time, ask if a cafe/restaurant has a (often non-existent) separate non-smoking area while making a reservation. This would never happen in other, civilised countries!!
The food has no quality
Price is total rip-off
waiters are prejudice
so Gourmet Kitchen FOOD is SHIT!!!
they think they can sell their shitty food by modifying the entree with the most stupid techniques such as filling the meats with craps so they have the excuse to flatten the meat in order to sell more meat (STUPIDITY) and pay their rent.
with the same food price that this stupid restaurant is offering, you can have better quality food at the regular cork and screw restaurant for instance (I said better not best) but you don’t have to drive all the way to Kemang and get stuck in a horrible traffic jam just to be in this retarded restaurant.
Gourmet Garage will be out of business in less than a year from now.
When they opened a couples of years ago, the food was good. I have not checked it out again for some time now. Thanks for the information.
I stopped going when they removed pork from their menu, something stupid to do for a “gourmet” restaurant that caters to expats.
I use to shop at the supermarket “Ranch Market” on the ground floor of the building. That’s why I went to the restaurant stalls upstairs the first time (a rainy day, no taxi). I found the food mediocre at best and hopelessly overprized while serving very small portions. I have to second Bev Ferres on the (lacking) quality of the food and found the whole affair pretty pretentious, if not ridiculous. However, many Indonesians seem to consider the place somehow “chique” and happily pay for the obvious rip-off. I even got there two times more as I guessed they might have had a “bad day” the first (and second) time. Silly me. But there seem to be nothing than bad days when it comes to food and prizing. I am certainly not going back and would not recommend the place. At least not, when it is not rainign and there is a chance to get away to, let’s say the new Bistro at Kem Chicks, which is much better and much cheaper and only a five minutes bemo ride away.
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a few of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling
issues and I to find it very bothersome to tell the truth then again I will surely
come again again.
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