The Lost Café

A Reason to Take the Long Road

There are places you stop at because they happen to be on the way. And then there are places that slowly become part of the reason for taking the road in the first place. The Lost Café belongs to the second category for me.

Sitting almost improbably along the main road climbing towards Bedugul, it is exactly the kind of place you could drive past without understanding what you had missed. A small roadside café, a few tables, the cooler mountain air beginning to replace the heat of southern Bali, nothing particularly spectacular from a distance. Then you stop. And Ibu Kadek feeds you.

The Lost Café, also known as Warung Kesasar, opened around 2020 and has built its reputation around something increasingly precious: food that genuinely feels homemade. Kadek is closely involved in the kitchen, preparing everything from breads and pastries to waffles, sandwiches, salads and more substantial dishes herself. There is none of the slightly industrial uniformity that can creep into even very good cafés. The food tastes as though somebody actually cared whether you enjoyed lunch.

That generosity extends to the sweeter things. The homemade jams are particularly difficult to ignore — especially in this part of Bali, surrounded by farms and the strawberries for which the Bedugul highlands are known. Have them with breakfast or dessert, then do yourself a favour and take a jar home if there is one available. Several regulars seem to have reached the same conclusion.

But what makes me particularly fond of The Lost Café is not one specific dish. It is the kindness of the place. Kadek and her team have that wonderfully uncomplicated kind of hospitality that makes a twenty-minute roadside stop unexpectedly turn into an hour. The café is small, warm and slightly eccentric, and somehow feels more like dropping into somebody's house than visiting a restaurant. Reviews often mention exactly this — the owner cooking herself, chatting with guests and creating an atmosphere that feels unusually personal.

And the food happens to be excellent. So much so that I occasionally find myself wanting to explore Bedugul simply because I know it gives me an excuse to stop here. That is perhaps the best compliment I can give a roadside café.

If you are heading from southern Bali towards Bedugul, Lake Beratan or further north towards Singaraja and Lovina, do not treat The Lost Café as somewhere to stop only if you happen to be hungry. Get hungry deliberately.

The Address

 

The Lost Café

Jl. Baturiti Bedugul No.108A
Batunya, Baturiti
Tabanan, Bali 82191
Indonesia
Instagram
@thelost.cafe

Price

$ — Affordable
Around IDR 50K–100K per person.

Go for

A homemade breakfast or lunch, good coffee and the kind of hospitality that makes a roadside stop memorable.

Bring home

One of Ibu Kadek’s homemade jams whenever they are available.

Also Nearby

Bali Botanical Garden

When Bali Finally Goes Quiet. A vast botanical garden in the cool Bedugul highlands, perfect for a long walk, a bicycle ride and a few hours away from Bali’s busier roads.

Recommendation

Do not arrive in a hurry. The Lost Café works best as a proper pause on the road into Bali’s highlands. Sit down, eat, talk to Kadek and enjoy the fact that for once there is absolutely no reason to rush.