This Fremantle eatery run by a self-taught chef showcases the many pleasures (and pains) of Indonesian cuisine

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A young boy sits quietly in the back of the family car. There is a book open across his lap. He clutches a pencil in his right hand.

“Dad,” asks the cherubic child, “why did they build the Great Wall of China?” Dad’s face freezes in confusion and mild panic. “That was during the time of Emperor Nasi Goreng,” he sputters. “It was to keep the rabbits out. There were too many rabbits. In China.”

And, just like that, the internet’s glow-up from Dungeons & Dragons plaything to mainstream is complete, and a new TV commercial gets inducted into Australian advertising’s hall of fame.

There was, of course, no Emperor Nasi Goreng in China, just as there’s no nasi goreng on the menu at Suku, a colourful Indonesian eatery inside Freo’s jaunty FOMO precinct.

What Suku does offer, though, is nasi Bali. Served in paper-lined baskets, this one-plate meal features tender spiced chicken (some shredded, some coarsely chopped into pieces); a deep brown cracker of fried chook skin; sate lilit (an adana kebab-style skewer made by squeezing minced chicken onto a popsicle stick) plus other Balinese favourites huddled around a hillock of jasmine rice.

When I first took Suku’s nasi Bali for a spin in 2021, I was shocked at how faithfully it channelled the taste and look of comparable dishes served at key Balinese warungs like Ibu Mardika (spicy!) and Mek Juwel (those views!). Five years on and my position remains unchanged, as does the dish’s transportive qualities.

The succinct menu includes other regional signatures that remind Suku founders Ria Zulkarnaen and Nicholas Mailenzun of their island home, too. Signatures such as bubur hitam: a black rice porridge finished with coconut cream that’s typically eaten for breakfast or dessert and typically not as cooked and mushy as the one I ate recently. (The way the bubur constantly swung between sweet and savoury, however, was bang on.)

I have nothing bad to say about Suku’s cumi suna cekuh, though. Except, perhaps, that I’m sad that I’m here in front of my laptop and on deadline while those hoops of supple braised squid (cumi; say it CHOO-mee) are over there in Freo, cloaked by a vivid, insanely delicious sauce of warming garlic (suna) and resiny sand ginger (cekuh) that is ubiquitous throughout the Island of the Gods.

The Gods, it seems, eat well. A concise drinks menu, naturally, includes Bintang, the pilsener-style beer named after Bali’s number-one selling singlet.

But a (strictly) Balinese restaurant Suku is not. In Indonesian, “suku” refers to groups or tribes with shared ancestry. In Fremantle, it translates to a kitchen that picks and mixes from across the Indonesian archipelago with a view to unearthing and serving the delicious.

The Balinese are far from alone when it comes to appreciating rendang: a slow-cooked stew from West Sumatra that can be taken in countless directions. (Rendang, derived from a local word meaning “to make dry”, is best thought of as a preservation technique rather than a single recipe.) For Mailenzun and Suku head chef Sangga Subangun, slowly braising beef chuck in sour tamarind water is the clever kitchen hack that gives hunks of dense, tender cow their intriguing twang of acidity.

Both the batagor – an ugly-delicious mess of golden mackerel wontons and hard-boiled eggs doused in a thick peanut sauce – and sate domba (lamb shoulder sate) hail from Java: a part of Indonesia where kecap manis is the local sweetener of choice. All three dishes are paid due respect by team Suku: as is, perhaps most pleasingly, Indonesia’s vast repertoire of vegetable creations.

That nasi Bali comes in a spunky vegetarian version that sees fried tofu and hash brown-like slices of tempeh (fermented soy bean cakes) made locally by Juragan Tempe standing in for the chicken. Chunky house-made lontong (rice cakes) are set adrift by with a mellow, turmeric-powered veggie curry that’s all too easy to like.

Suku’s most compelling arguments for plant-based deliciousness, though, are its sambals: big-hitting condiments that are integral to Indonesian food culture. Here, they range from bang-on renditions of the classics (I can’t get enough of the sambal matah, Bali’s famous “raw” sambal made by hand-mixing finely sliced shallots, lemongrass, bird’s eye chilli and makrut leaf) to new eye-watering inventions. Beware the dab of finely minced, fermented red chilli served with the batagor: a potent, heart-starter of a thing that’s inspired as much by Indonesian tradition as contemporary, global food movements.

You know and I know that Perth has long been home to Australia’s best South-East Asian food. This is nothing new. What is new though, is the growing number of cosmopolitan Asian kitchens and pop-ups offering modern, personal riffs on the food and food culture of their family table.

While this trend started around a decade back, it gained traction – both here and across Asia – post-COVID with operations like Rym Tarng, North 54, Dahl Daddy’s and Magnolia leading the charge. Consider Suku another of the local movement’s ringleaders. Like its peers, this cheery dining room serves delicious things cooked by third-culture kids that grew up between east and west and experienced fusion cooking before the marketers hijacked the term. These are the kids raised by hip hop and Vice. These are the kids that are both asking and answering the question: “what is Australasian food?” These are the kids that grew up with the internet.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.