Meet the duo behind August, one of Jakarta’s hottest fine dining restaurants

You are at the heart of Jakarta’s CBD on a Friday night, walking into one of the skyscrapers for your dinner reservation at August. The door opens, you are greeted by name and shown to your table. Inside, you find a cosy space with warm lighting, buzzing with chatter. Relaxed guests mingle, some dressed casually in T-shirts.

At first glance, August is not your typical fine dining restaurant. But behind the unpretentious facade is Jakarta’s current brightest star in the city’s dining scene. For two years in a row, August has been listed in the prestigious Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The accolade is a first for Jakarta, and follows in the footsteps of only three Bali-based restaurants – Sarong, Mozaic and Locavore. The restaurant’s bold move to centre a seasonal tasting menu on Indonesian ingredients seems to have paid off.

Soon, co-owner Budi Cahyadi joins in. He, too, is dressed in a white T-shirt layered with a blue buttoned-down. “In my years of working in hospitality, I’ve found that I don’t like the overly formal fine dining scene where guests have to whisper when talking, and the ambience is so quiet that the whole restaurant can hear if you drop a fork,” Cahyadi said. “My dream is to build a place where people feel welcome, a restaurant where the food is good and the service is equally good.”

Cahyadi’s dream stems from decades in the hospitality industry. Born and raised in Lombok, he built his career in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park London, where he made his way up from working as a receptionist. Following a 10-year stint in London, he moved back to Jakarta to become director of F&B at Mandarin Oriental Jakarta. After 12 years with the Mandarin Oriental Group, he worked for Gunung Sewu Group, which manages some of Jakarta’s renowned restaurants of the 2000s, including Cassis and Harum Manis.

The warm-hearted hospitality that Cahyadi believes in manifests in August, a fine dining restaurant with casual vibes he co-founded with chef Hans Christian. He admitted that before launching August, there were many doubts about opening a degustation-focused restaurant in Jakarta. The doubts were not without reason, as sustaining a fine dining establishment in Jakarta is no easy feat. Predecessors like French-style Emily and Dutch-inspired Oasis had to close after many years, while new names with top chefs come and go. But Cahyadi and Christian were firm on their decision.

Cahyadi first heard about Christian when he was working at The View at Fairmont Jakarta. “I heard good things about the new chef at The View. I tried and really liked the food, so I sent Hans a DM on Instagram and invited him to chat over coffee. During our meeting, we discovered that we shared similar values in hospitality. It took us about eight months of sharing visions before deciding to partner up," shared Cahyadi.

Prior to his three-year lead at The View, Christian studied culinary nutrition at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, US. The century-old institution is known for its culinary arts and hospitality studies. His formidable years in the restaurant industry were spent at Yono’s in New York and Next Restaurant, a one-Michelin star establishment in Chicago.

In 2019, Cahyadi and Christian finally took a leap of faith. They both quit their full-time jobs, invested their life savings, and committed to opening a restaurant together. Determined to define a clear concept and direction before fully going all in, they rented an apartment in South Jakarta and transformed the living room to accommodate a communal table for 12. They began hosting private dinners each night, initially inviting friends to dine. Before long, word spread among Jakarta’s food enthusiasts, critics, and media.

“The apartment kitchen became our laboratory to test out different menus. The setting was intimate enough that we could get honest feedback, while building a relationship with our guests. If we decided to open a restaurant straightaway, I don’t think we would have been able to build that solid relationship with our clientele,” Christian said.

The customer base they built around the communal table turned into regular patrons when they finally opened August the restaurant in 2021. Tucked inside Sequis Tower in SCBD, one of the most expensive addresses in Jakarta, August is a 50-seater space designed by Bitte Studio, a Jakarta-based firm with an impressive portfolio in F&B.

The open space is loosely divided into sections – the main dining area, the lounge, the chef’s counter, and the chef’s table. The 40-person team works efficiently throughout the area, making sure guests feel attended to without being intimidated. On any night, you will see Cahyadi moving between tables, introducing himself to new guests and catching up with returning patrons. Christian, naturally, spends most of his time doing quality control in the open kitchen – adjacent to the chef’s table.

When we visited at the end of October, August had just launched their Season 9 tasting menu. The Chef’s Journey features 15 courses in which, true to their identity, Indonesian curated ingredients take centre stage.

Throughout the two-hour feast, it is interesting to see how chef Christian positions Jakarta as a culinary hub to discover Indonesian flavours. Guests get to taste white fish sourced from Lombok and octopus from Natuna, the endemic pohpohan leaves from West Java, as well as the fragrant ginger flower and traditional sauces like Manadonese woku and Central Javanese garang asem.

“My first real understanding of the local palate began in 2016, when I was working at The View. There, we served European dishes with an Asian touch. Here at August, we focus on Indonesia. The direction is to incorporate Indonesian produce, flavour, and cooking technique into dishes with European DNA,” said Christian.

Another notable point is that August regularly spotlights their suppliers. In this season, they highlight Mazaraat, a Yogyakarta-made natural cheese, and Jakarta-based noodle shop Bakmi Tiga Marga, on the menu. The former makes the base for a cheese-filled bread for a starter dish, while the latter specially creates a chewy noodle for a cold dish paired with jellyfish.

What Cahyadi and Christian do at August has not gone unnoticed by fellow chefs, who regularly host their guests there. “As a chef, when you eat, you expect a bit of enlightenment – and I get it at August. They serve international cuisine with a stimulating Indonesian touch. Every detail is well thought-out. The service is top-notch – from the front door to the dining room,” said Arief "Tonggeng" Rachman, executive chef at Toma Group.

Beyond good food, August prides itself in the solid team that provides quality service to ensure each guest experiences a memorable visit. This means imparting values to the team members, including treating guests as equals. 

Cahyadi and Christian aspire for their team members to engage guests in genuine conversations and have a thorough knowledge of each dish rather than limiting themselves to superficial courtesy. This team culture is made possible by Cahyadi and Christian’s positions as co-owners, setting them apart from many key figures in the restaurant industry who have to answer to a board of investors.

“I hope that what we do here at August shows that there is a future in being frontliners of the hospitality industry. At the moment, working Front of House is still seen as merely a means to survive, something you do while waiting for office jobs. But we want to show our team, and others working in the industry, that frontliners are just as important as the kitchen team in creating a great dining experience for guests,” Cahyadi said.

When you are the hot ticket in town, the easy financial decision would be to open every day of the week. After all, in this economy, one must do what needs to be done to survive. Yet August chooses to prepare the team’s energy for the long run. They close on Sundays and Mondays to give the team a proper break.

“We both know that staying afloat in the F&B business means sacrificing a lot of family time. But we decided to close two days a week to keep everyone sane – including ourselves! When we opened the restaurant, we committed to show up every day, just like any other team members. If we ourselves need a break, so does the team,” Cahyadi said.

Having said that, the team shows up to work on one Sunday every month. On that Sunday, the kitchen team does R&D for next season’s menu, while the service team evaluates their performance and does hospitality training to stay sharp.

“I first knew August during their private dining days, and I can say that the food has evolved. When I first tried the food, I was surprised by the creativity of the dishes – not many Indonesian restaurants manage to balance creativity and flavour. I come back regularly, at least every year, and I am happy to see how chef Hans has found his identity in cooking. It’s always a good time to dine at August, and it’s nice to be treated as an old friend at a restaurant,” said Juswin Anwar, a former assessor of Asia & World’s 50 Best Restaurants from 2020 to 2022.

August is playing the long game, and they are now on a pivotal moment in their journey. Cahyadi and Christian are grateful for the growing interest from regional food enthusiasts and chefs eager to visit August – and Jakarta.

“We hope that by August being on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list,” said Cahyadi, "more people would be interested to visit Jakarta and experience the local culinary scene as a whole. Up until this point, Jakarta is seen more as a business stop rather than a culinary destination. We hope to take an active part in changing that.”

Additional reporting by Nina Hidayat.