The Italian Toast – Grilled sunflower bread, honey roasted ham, fontina cheese
A really cool “restaurant slash bar slash sneaker store” is the sort of hipster fantasy combo that shouldn’t work, but somehow The Safehouse manages to pull it off. It’s also the sort of thing that you’d expect to find in an indie enclave like Kemang, not the swanky Mega Kuningan business district, but its central location just adds to its unlikely appeal.
A black-and-white motif accentuated by clean geometric lines emphasizes the venue’s dual function as both F&B establishment and showroom for designer kicks label Some Are Thieves (thus the name Safehouse, get it?).
After visiting a few times for some of the venue’s raucous DJ events, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that The Safehouse’s food menu is much more than an afterthought.
Credit for that must go to Chef Tommaso Gonfiantini, who was one of the masterminds behind the original Trattoria in Jakarta. Like that Italian dining institution, the menu at Safehouse features a wide variety of simple dishes that emphasize excellent ingredients to flavorful effect.
Given Gonfiantini’s pedigree, its no surprise that pastas like the penne carbonara (Rp. 65k), dressed in a rich egg yolk sauce dotted with bits of crispy guanciale balanced with black pepper and chives, are pitch perfect, especially for the price. A variety of tapas sized deli dishes, like fried polenta bites, hand cured salmon on toast, and crostini topped with Tuscan chicken liver pate (all 30k) all make for excellent snacking while imbibing the bar’s pricey but powerful cocktails.
However, the thing that really makes us love Safehouse is that they serve up some of the best gourmet sandwiches in the city, with quality ingredients (including excellent bread from Paul Bakery and Patisserie) making all the difference. The Kitchen Garden (Rp 70k), featuring toasted sunflower bread topped with grilled zucchini and radicchio, tangy eggplant mutabal, stir-fried taleggio cheese and roasted garlic cream is a vegetarian sandwich so good even carnivores will lust after it. The hand-cut Angus burger (Rp. 80k), topped with caramelized onions, pork bacon, cheddar cheese and chili mayo, is also amongst the best Jakarta has to offer.
The Safehouse
Lobby Level, Bellagio Mansion , Lingkaran Mega Kuningan, Jakarta
T: 021 30050510
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