IT TAKES A VILLAGE
When young Indonesian entrepreneur Ronald Akili returned to his native Jakarta after 13 years in Hawaii, he was a man on a mission. “Back then, there was so little exposure of Indonesian contemporary art and architecture, or even Indonesian food, on the global stage. So the first thing I wanted to do was to put Indonesia on the map.”
He would get his chance in 2009 through Potato Head, a pet project with business partner Jason Gunawan that began as a casual Jakarta restaurant before branching out to Bali, where the two acquired a three-hectare beachside plot in Seminyak. The dream, Akili says, was to create an international lifestyle brand out of Indonesia, starting with the launch of Potato Head’s now-legendary beach club, which opened in 2010 below a Colosseum-like facade of vintage teak shutters. Its arresting design was conceived by leading Indonesian architect Andra Matin, whose
