The beachside village of Canggu is the Balinese home to Mason, a new restaurant dedicated to using carefully sourced local and organic produce, the finest ingredients possible that go to make spectacular food. Group Chef Benjamin Cross employs ageless cooking methods such as smoking and wood-fire grilling, applying ancient processes of pickling, curing, and fermenting, and perfecting traditional techniques such as cheesemaking.
The 100-seat restaurant creates a minimal, elegant space that uses concrete, stone, steel, and wood – elements that convey relaxed sophistication – in coordination with the open kitchen as the center of attention. The terracotta strip leads the eye across the dining room floor and into an open-air, string-lit courtyard, the perfect spot for a cold beer, glass of wine, or cocktail from the concise list of no-nonsense takes on classics like sours, Martinis and Negronis. An evening spent at Mason might find the table covered in a variety of snacks ranging from wood-fired flatbread, Smoke Tuna Tonnato or Brown Butter and Chilli-Spiked Hummus to a selection of house-made cheeses and delicacies from the in-house butcher.
Dinner, meanwhile, might see more substantial starters such as Spiced Calamari with Romesco and Radicchio, or Fried Cauliflower paired with Pine Nuts and Pomegranate, followed by mains along the lines of wood-fired fillets of Barramundi Spiced with Cardamom and Smoked Tomato.
