“The initial idea is to not stray far from wine. Eating while drinking wine is also something I do a lot with my friends, so we thought it’d be great to create a casual dining experience around it,” said Chef Renatta Moeloek, the creative force behind the newly-opened Glou Wine & Bistro by Jaddi+.
The bistro inspiration itself is not far from Renatta’s days of living in France during her culinary studies at Le Cordon Bleu, where she frequently dined at bistros in her spare time. Attracted by the simple and casual characteristic of a French bistro, where the essence, as Renatta described it, is more about “having your food cooked by someone as opposed to being served”, Glou also wants to direct a similar groove at its snug and homely space on Wijaya street in Melawai.
Spruced up together with head chef Adam Rizal Pradana, the food’s range of French, Peruvian and Spanish influences may have one looking intently at the menu in fear of ordering something wrong. But they’re not designed to intimidate, on the contrary, they are cooked to both excite and comfort the taste buds with almost every dish laced with some local ingredients.
Take the Fish Meuniére, a plate of pan-seared fish that is seasoned with green chilli from Pontianak. While slices of the Steak au Poivre, a traditional French dish of peppered steak, are coated with andaliman sauce and green peppercorns from Bogor. Most of them are sharing plates too, so ordering a bunch to have a little bit of everything has become some sort of an unspoken rule for frequenters coming with a group.
How does this pair with Glou’s deep selections of wine? The resident sommelier might recommend you to pair the fish dish with a chardonnay from Chile, or a bottle of red from South Africa for the steak. But other options of rosé and sparkling wine can also ease the uninitiated into the routine of drinking wine in an easy and casual way—as it should be. “Pop a bottle of white wine during lunch? That’s okay. It should be seen as casual instead of intimidating, and that’s the environment that we want to show here at Glou,” closed Chef Adam.
