My Dear Clara Brings Handmade Pasta and Cheese to Uluwatu

The team behind KALA has opened an Italian restaurant on Jalan Labuansait, built around an open kitchen, a working cheese room and a dining room that gets noisier as the night goes on.

My Dear Clara Uluwatu announces itself before the menu even arrives. Paper tablecloths and crayons are already laid out. A glass-walled cheese room sits at one end of the dining room, in near-constant use. Near the bar, a rotary evaporator works through a batch of infused spirit for the cocktail list. None of this reads as staged; by the time the first plates land, the room already feels like a party that started without you.

The restaurant opened on 5 September 2026 in Pecatu and is the newest project from the group behind KALA one of Uluwatu’s established dining addresses, as well as Lola’s Cantina, Lolitas Cantina Mexicana and Two Moods. My Dear Clara is their version of an Italian restaurant in Uluwatu, built around a menu of shared plates and a room designed to open up as the evening progresses.

A Dinner Party in Uluwatu

The restaurant sits a short drive from the surf breaks that put this stretch of coast on the map long before its restaurants did. Inside, the 140-seat space unfolds across two levels linked by timber and exposed brick, with the open kitchen positioned at the centre so that cooking becomes something to watch rather than a process happening out of view.

It is a warm, high-ceilinged room, plush sofas and enough noise in the air that no conversation feels overheard. Ryan Jefferson, one of the co-owners, is matter-of-fact about what he wanted from the space: “We wanted My Dear Clara to be a place that takes the food seriously, but not so much ourselves. We put a lot of work and emphasis into the process of the food and cocktails, but we still want the room to feel relaxed and fun, somewhere you want to hang around for a while. I have really enjoyed watching the guests of the island appreciate the concept and details we put into this project. I love looking around and seeing people laugh over a bottle of wine, and home-made pasta with home-made cheese on top, while drawing all over the table and getting creative.” A few tables over, that was more or less what was happening: a bottle of wine going around, someone reaching for the crayons between courses, nobody checking the time.

The Kitchen Takes Centre Stage

Four open workstations animate the dining room, each visible from most tables. The cheese room is the most eye-catching, a fully transparent space where the team makes fresh cheeses using milk sourced from Java, pulling mozzarella by hand while also producing ricotta, stracciatella, burrata, feta, halloumi and scamorza. Beside it, the pasta section turns out shapes such as casarecce, bigoli, gnocchi, pappardelle and tagliatelle rolled and cut by hand. A pizza bar sends out thin, Roman-style pizzas, and the cocktail station uses that rotary evaporator to distil its own infusions for the drinks list.

Chef Zarrukh Farkhodovich, one of the restaurant’s four co-owners, runs the kitchen. He trained under Juan Mari and Elena Arzak at Arzak, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant in San Sebastián, before working under Nino Graziano and Luca Verdolini at Semifreddo. At My Dear Clara, that training feeds into a menu shaped by Sicilian influences, evident in the precision of the cooking and the considered composition of each plate.

From House-Made Cheese to Duck Caramelle

The cacio e pepe arancini, served with vodka sauce and burrata, is a good place to start, as is the tomato on focaccia with anchovy, both sized for the table rather than one person. A selection of salumi and cheeses is sliced to order, with mortadella, Salame Milano, prosciutto and coppa appearing alongside Grana Padano and Pecorino Sardo.

The yellowfin tuna crudo, paired with sun-sweet melon and a catalana dressing, leans towards sweetness, with the melon softening the tuna while the dressing provides the necessary acidity. The octopus mortadella with pistachio and celery gremolata is a stranger pairing on paper, and the crunch of the pistachio against the softness of the mortadella is what makes it work.

Pasta carries the meal. The beef cheek pappardelle, dressed with balsamic and pecorino, has enough acidity running through it to cut the richness of the slow-cooked meat. The duck caramelle comes in a mushroom butter sauce that coats the pasta lightly instead of collecting heavily beneath it. Among the larger dishes, the barramundi all’acqua pazza is clean and brothy. The porchetta takes a richer direction, arriving with salsa verde and a spiced jus.

The pistachio tiramisu arrives with a note reading “one spoon, take what you want,” an invitation to abandon individual portions and pass the dessert around the table. On drinks, the Parmigiano Martini is worth trying first, a savoury opening pour with enough depth to accompany the first plates.

Practical Details

My Dear Clara is open daily from 5pm until late. There is music throughout the week, with DJs taking over at weekends as the lighting drops and the restaurant settles into its louder, later-night character. The crayons remain on the tables, even when some guests have started dancing.

Booking ahead is worth it, particularly at weekends. The room may be loose and sociable, but the cooking behind it is precise: cheese made in full view, pasta shaped by hand and cocktails distilled only a few steps from the bar.

Address: Jalan Labuansait No. 44, Pecatu, Bali 80361

Opening hours: 5pm to late, daily

For more information, visit mydearclara.com or @my_dear_clara on Instagram